PS 122's COIL Festival Expands Across NYC 1/5-29
By: Gabrielle Sierra Nov. 03, 2011
Performance Space 122's contemporary performance festival, COIL, returns in an expanded edition for its seventh year. Spanning 25 days and taking place at multiple venues across New York City, this annual mid-winter festival "aimed at the head, the guts and the heart" (New York Post, 2011) features 10 premieres from daring international and New York-based artists.
Performance Space 122 Artistic Director Vallejo Gantner commented, "COIL 2012 represents a Performance Space 122 of which we are all very proud. Across the city, sourced from around the world. Fully realized, but on the bleeding front edge. As we spend the upcoming seasons outside of our home, we are proud to be embarking on several catalytic partnerships that help make this vital work possible: The Invisible Dog Arts Center, Under the Radar & The Public Theater, SPiN New York, and the wonderful Baryshnikov Arts Center."
Tickets to COIL go on sale to package holders on November 2 and to the general public on December 1, 2011. All tickets may be purchased online at ps122.org, via phone at 212-352-3101, and in person at the Box Office at Performance Space 122 (150 1st Avenue) except where otherwise noted. Single ticket prices vary per event. Ticket packages include: The PS122 Passport (5 tickets for $75 valid through June 30, 2012) & The COIL Pass - recommended for Arts Professionals & Performance Lovers (10 tickets for $100 valid through January 29, 2012).Every House Has a Door (Chicago, Croatia)Upstairs at Performance Space 122 (150 First Ave. NYC)
Jan 5, 6 at 8pm; Jan 7 at 6pm, Jan 8, 9 at 3pm
Tickets: $20 ($15 for students, seniors)The New York premiere of Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never. marks the New York debut of the performance collective Every House Has a Door, which features Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish, co-founders of the performance group Goat Island; fellow Chicagoan Stephen Fiehn (of Cupola Bobber); and Croatian artists Selma Banich and Mislav ?avadjda. In a densely layered, high-energy weaving of text and movement, the artists, influenced by Yugoslavian filmmaker Dušan Makavejev and the work of American philosopher Stanley Cavell, respond to the work of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. Alternately visceral, poetic, grotesque and humorous, this multi-disciplinary work engages the histories of utopianism and revolt in an unjust world.
Davis Freeman (Belgium)
Co-presented with The Old SchoolThe Old School (233 Mott St. NYC)
Jan 6, 7, 9-11, 13, 14 at 5pm and 9pm
Tickets: $25 ($20 for students, seniors)The celebrated American-born, Belgium-based dance artist Davis Freeman invites audiences of just 10 at a time to experience the US Premiere of Too shy to stare. Developed over the last nine years in Europe, this unique two-hour performance attempts to eliminate the barriers that exist between performer and audience in highly original and unrepeatable ways. Ticket buyers are required to make an appointment to have their photograph taken at least 48 hours in advance of attending the performance. A cast of local performers wear the photographs like masks, creating the illusion that the audience is performing for themselves. Using set and newly developed choreography, Too shy to stare is also dependent on how far the audience is willing to let their imaginations take them. Too shy to stare is made possible with support from Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Koen Kwanten, Kaai theatre, Damaged goods, and the VGC. Created in part at the Arts Collaboration Lab, a partnership between Columbia University School of the Arts and Performance Space 122 in July 2011.Looking for a Missing Employee (US Premiere)
The Pixelated Revolution (World Premiere)
Rabih Mroué (Lebanon)Baryshnikov Arts Center
Howard Gillman Performance Space (450 West 37th St. NYC)
Looking for a Missing Employee on Jan 6, 7 at 7:30pm; Jan 8 at 5pm
The Pixelated Revolution on Jan 9 at 7:30pm
Tickets: $20 ($15 for students, seniors)Lebanese actor, writer and director Rabih Mroué makes his US debut in the American premiere of Looking for a Missing Employee. In this solo performance, Mroué uses newspaper clippings to detail a disturbing case of a missing employee and the larger political and economic factors responsible for his disappearance. Based on true events, Looking for a Missing Employee combines found narrative with projection and live video feed. Mroué explores questions of presence, absence and documentation for individuals and society at large. In the work-in-progress lecture performance The Pixelated Revolution, Mroué explores the role social media and mobile phones played during the recent Syrian revolution. Rabih Mroué belongs to a tight-knit generation of artists that keeps Beirut at the forefront of the international artistic and cultural scene. He is the winner of the 2010 Spalding Gray Award.The Pixelated Revolution is commissioned by the 2010 Spalding Gray Award (Performance Space 122 in New York, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, On the Boards in Seattle, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis).El pasado es un animal grotesco / The past is a grotesque animal (US Premiere)
Mariano Pensotti (Argentina)
Co-presented with The Public Theater's Under the Radar FestivalThe Public Theater (425 Lafayette St., NYC)
Jan 7 at 7pm; Jan 8 at 2pm; Jan 10 - Jan 14 at 7pm; Jan 15 at 2pm
Tickets: $20 (Single tickets on sale December 7 at undertheradarfestival.com)In this highly anticipated US Premiere directed by Mariano Pensotti, damaged photographs pieced together by an indie rock anthem by the band Of Montreal tell the epic and cinematic chronicle of the lives of four young Argentinians between 1999-2009. This record, bittersweet, fragmented, and fast-paced, displays past lives - both true and imaginary - across a slowly revolving stage. In Spanish with English subtitles.Made possible by the Performing Americas Program (PAP), a partnership between the National Performance Network (NPN) and the Network of Cultural Promoters of Latin America and the Caribbean (La RED) designed to increase artistic exchange in the Western Hemisphere. Performing Americas Program is supported by the NPN with funding provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. Co-produced by Grupo Marea, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Festival de Otoño de Madrid and Theaterformen.The Green Surround (Originally premiered in May 2011 at PS 122)
Heather Kravas (US, France)Downstairs at Performance Space 122 (150 First Ave. NYC)
Jan 7 at 7:30pm; Jan 8 at 6pm; Jan 9 at 5pm
Tickets: $20 ($15 for students, seniors)Choreographer Heather Kravas returns to the downstairs space at Performance Space 122 with The Green Surround, a work that upends the effortful physicality of nine women and the practice of perfection. Kravas utilizes repetition and combines the endless rhythmic possibilities of classical and anti-classical movement, text, and atmospheric sound to distort ideas of beauty. In attempting perfection, individuality begins to seep through the cracks as a community forms around the performers' shared effort. The Green Surround recognizes the beauty of a body forced and forcing itself into an ideal, while considering the possibility that some necessary vitality exists in the pathetic failings to these standards. Insisting strength, while insinuating violence, it aims to be perfect, while hoping to undermine perfectionism. The Green Surround is made possible with commissioning support from Performance Space 122 and the Jerome Foundation. This work received its US premiere at Performance Space 122 in April 2011. Additional support provided by Mertz Gilmore Foundation, TestPerformanceTest and Swedish Hasbeens.Mission Drift (US Premiere)
the TEAM (NY)The Connelly Theater (220 E 4th St. NYC)
Jan 8 at 11am; Jan 9-10, 12-14, 17-21, 24-28 at 8pm; Jan 15, 22, 29 at 5pm; Jan 28 at 2pm
Tickets: $25 ($20 for students, seniors)The TEAM returns to Performance Space 122 with the US premiere of the award-winning, contemporary musical Mission Drift, following a critically acclaimed European tour of the work. Combining atomic blasts, Elvis gyrations and lizard ballet with original music by Heather Christian (2011 Off-Off-Broadway Innovator to Watch, Time Out New York), Mission Drift is an epic journey East and West in search of the soul of American capitalism. The work interweaves the story of two immortal Dutch teens who travel west from 1624 Amsterdam to modern-day Las Vegas with an intimate portrait of a contemporary Vegas cocktail waitress laid-off due to the financial collapse. "What a blast," declares The Guardian, "the company fulfill all their much-hyped promise in this gorgeous, gaudy musical." Renowned for fusing American history, myth, and contemporary stories, the TEAM, under the direction of Obie award-winner Rachel Chavkin, conceived of Mission Drift before the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Yet in this timely work, the company wrestles with questions that are at the forefront of our current economic and political climate: How did we arrive at this financial crisis? How do we recover as individuals and as a country? What are our hopes for the future? Mission Drift was awarded the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize, the Scotsman Fringe First and the Herald Angel Awards.Mission Drift was made possible with support from the Greenwall Foundation, the Panta Rhea Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the JMJ Family Fund, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, The Almeida Theatre, Performance Space 122, & Culturgest. It was developed at London's Almeida Theatre, Brooklyn's BRICStudio, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, LMCC's Swing Space grant at Building 110 on Governors Island, the Orchard Project, Soho Think Tank's Ice Factory Festival, CUNY's Prelude Festival, and ArtsEmerson. Choreography for Blackboards (US Premiere)
Michael Kliën with Steve Valk (Ireland)
Co-presented by The Invisible Dog Art CenterThe Invisible Dog Art Center (51 Bergen St. Brooklyn, NY)
Jan 8 at 3pm; Jan 9, 11 at 6pm; Jan 10 at 8pm
Tickets: $20 ($15 for students, seniors)The US Premiere of Choreography for Blackboards, a work by European choreographer Michael Kliën (with dramaturge Steve Valk), weaves the drawings of seven performers info a collective dance of minds. Drawing on seven monolithic blackboards, seven local and international performers follow exact, rehearsed procedures over a set period of time. As the drawings develop and become more expressive, audience members are invited to interact with the performances or simple observe. Once the choreography has come to an end, a landscape of drawings is left for display and contemplation.Choreography for Blackboards is made possible with support from Mertz Gilmore Foundation and Culture Ireland. Originally produced by Daghdha Dance Company, Ireland. ANGER AT THE MOVIES (World Premiere)
David Levine (NY, Berlin)Mabou Mines (150 1st Ave. NYC)
Jan 10 at 6pm; Jan 11 at 8pm
Tickets: $20 ($15 for students, seniors)A seminar masquerading as theatre, masquerading as a film screening, ANGER AT THE MOVIES is the follow-up to Levine's acclaimed Venice Saved: A Seminar, which premiered at Performance Space 122 in 2010. Returning to the format of a performance seminar, Levine asks the audience, "Why is it so annoying to see your profession represented on film?" Audience members are invited to present a YouTube clip in which their own professions are misrepresented which will then be discussed as part of the evening.ANGER AT THE MOVIES was created in part at the Arts Collaboration Lab, a partnership between Columbia University School of the Arts and Performance Space 122 in July 2011.Newyorkland (New York Premiere)
Temporary Distortion (NY)Baryshnikov Arts Center
Howard Gillman Performance Space (450 West 37th St. NYC)
Jan 12 at 7pm; Jan 13, 14, 17-21, 24-28 at 7:30pm; Jan 15 at 6pm
Tickets: $20 ($15 for students, seniors) New York performance group Temporary Distortion merges film, live performance and visual art in Newyorkland, which makes its New York Premiere in the festival. The work follows four male police officers who struggle with the challenges and rigorous demands of being a cop in New York City. Inspired by first-person accounts from real-life police officers along with popular 1970s cop films and TV police dramas, Newyorkland is staged by director Kenneth Collins in one of the company's signature box-like structures. This installation serves as a framework for the both the performers' restrained acting style and as a canvas for the arresting images of projections designer William Cusick.Newyorkland is made possible with commissioning support from Performance Space 122. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional support provided by the Arts Collaboration Lab, a partnership between Columbia University School of the Arts and Performance Space 122 in July 2011, and The Greenwall Foundation.UNTITLED FEMINIST SHOW (New York Premiere)
Young Jean Lee's Theater Company (NY)
Co-presented with Baryshnikov Arts Center as part of BAC Presents SeriesConceived and directed by Young Jean Lee
Featuring Becca Blackwell, World Famous *BOB*, Amelia Zirin-Brown (aka Lady Rizo), Hilary Clark, Katy Pyle and Regina Rocke
Choreography by the Company in collaboration with Faye Driscoll
Associate Director: Morgan GouldBaryshnikov Arts Center
Jerome Robbins Theater (450 W 37th St. NYC)
Jan 12 at 8:30pm; Jan 13-15, 18-21, 24-28 at 8pm
Tickets: $25 ($20 for students, seniors)Theatrical provocateur and winner of the 2011 Spalding Gray award Young Jean Lee unveils her latest experiment, UNTITLED FEMINIST SHOW, in its New York Premiere. Committed as ever to working far outside her comfort zone, Lee-who is known primarily as a writer-here creates a nearly wordless spectacle that invites the audience to examine what feminism means to them. Six charismatic performers take the audience on an exhilarating and disorienting journey through an array of unexpected possibilities, heightening our awareness of the gap between what we think we are and what we could be.Young Jean Lee (Artistic Director) is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and OBIE Award winner, and was named by American Theatre magazine one of the 25 artists who will shape the American theater over the next 25 years. Since 2002, she has directed her plays at Soho Rep (LEAR; THE APPEAL), The Kitchen (THE SHIPMENT), The Public Theater (CHURCH), Performance Space 122 (CHURCH; PULLMAN, WA), HERE Arts Center (Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven), and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals); and performed in her play WE'RE GONNA DIE (with band Future Wife) at Joe's Pub. She and her company have been the recipients of numerous grants and her work has been invited to tour to venues in over 30 cities around the world. Recent awards include a 2010 fellowship in playwriting from NYFA, and a 2010 Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.Originally commissioned by The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN) this production is a co-production of The Walker Art Center, Steirischer Herbst (Graz), Kunstenfestivaldesartes (Brussels), the 2011 Spalding Gray Award (Performance Space 122 in New York, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, On the Boards in Seattle, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis), and Young Jean Lee's Theater Company. Originally developed in association with Caleb Hammons. Funding support provided by the MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, the MAP/Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Creative Explorations Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Residency support from The Park Avenue Armory, The New Museum, Mount Tremper Arts, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center.
The Red & White Party
Presented by Performance Space 122 & SPiN New YorkSPiN New York (48 East 23rd St. NYC)
Jan 8; Doors at 7pmDowntown's definitive holiday bash turns 7 this year at SPiN New York and moves into January to ring in the New Year and celebrate COIL. Choreographer Jack Ferver, new media artist Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, and performance tour de force Reggie Watts provide singular performance as you show off your ping-pong prowess in an all night long competition hosted by Crumpler. Fame, prizes, and libations abound as COIL artists, international arts professionals, festival partners, PS122 Board Members & Staff invigorate an irresistible cross-section of NYC nightlife.Single tickets from $30, VIP tables from $500SPiN NY is part of SPiN Galactic - a galaxy of ping-pong social clubs created by Franck Raharinosy, Andrew Gordon, Jonathan Bricklin, and Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon.
About Performance Space 122For over 3 decades, Performance Space 122 has been a hub for contemporary performance and an active member of the cultural community in N.Y.C. and across the globe. In 1980, the organization was founded by Charles Moulton, Charles Dennis, Tim Miller and Peter Rose to offer artists rehearsal and performance opportunities in the revamped cafeteria of a former New York City public school (PS 122) at the corner of First Avenue and Ninth Street in New York's East Village. In 1986, under the artistic direction of Mark Russell, the organization doubled its programming by converting the gymnasium on the first floor of the school building into a second performance space. Over the past 30 Years, PS122 has brought forward not only artists, like John Leguizamo, Jonathan Ames, Eric Bogosian, the Blue Man Group or Annie Dorsen who have gone on to make waves in commercial arenas on Broadway or at HBO, but also artists who have triggered national debate about political and ethical issues, like the original "NEA four", Ethyl Eichelberger (HIV/AIDS activist), or more recently Young Jean Lee and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (contemporary social critiques), as well as artists who have radicalized aesthetic form like Meredith Monk, Spalding Gray, Ron Athey, Richard Maxwell, Elevator Repair Service, Radiohole, Adrienne Truscott, Verdensteatret (Norway), Rabih Mroué (Lebanon), Philippe Quesne (France), and Maria Hassabi (Cyprus).In the past 7 years, under the curatorial vision of Artistic Director Vallejo Gantner, PS122 has developed a set of Presenting Programs that include commissions and presentations of New York, national and International Artists working in contemporary performance, theater, dance, multi-disciplinary, new music, media and installations. All of the programs at PS122 have been designed to further the creative process for our artists and launch them into more sustainable careers. In the last two years PS122 has shifted focus to better serve audiences, both locally, nationally and internationally by advocating and building partnerships across the globe. The results of these efforts have benefited our artists by increasing their local exposure and earning capacity, and by expanding their touring opportunities and therefore also the life-span and reach of their works. Beginning this season, PS122 has embarked on one of the most unusual and potentially radical shifts in the 30-year history of Performance Space 122, its artists, and its community, including a re-structuring of our artist support, a business model overhaul, and the renovation of our building. As PS122's East Village home undergoes a much-needed interior renovation supported primarily by the City of New York, DCA and DDC, PS122's core activity continues to be providing audiences with contemporary live performance.Website: ps122.org
YouTube: youtube.com/PerformanceSpace122
Twitter: @PS122
Facebook: facebook.com/ps122/Performance Space 122 receives support from the following organizations: Alacran, American Association of Performing Arts Presenters: Cultural Exchange Fund, Axe-Houghton Foundation, The Booth Ferris Foundation, Edith C. Blum Foundation, British Council, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Continuum Health, Crumpler, Culture Ireland, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Eastern Bloc, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Gawker Media, Gesso Foundation, Grayson Maine, Great Brewers, The Greenwall Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Jerome Foundation, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Jewish Communal Fund, The Lambent Foundation, Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for the Arts/The New York Community Trust, Mary Queen of Scots, McGraw Hill Companies, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The Morrison & Foerster Foundation, Monsieur Touton, National Performance Network (NPN), New England Foundation for the Arts/National Dance Project (NDP), New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council for the Arts, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, San Arturo, Peg Santvoord Foundation, Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, The Puffin Foundation, The Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, SPiN New York, Time Warner Cable, Tony Randall Theatrical Fund, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Two Boots, Vbar St. Marks and Veselka.
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