Rebecca Patek's CHASM To Play The Tank 2/28-3/4

The Tank (Meghan Finn and Rosalind Grush, Artistic Directors) will present the World Premiere of Rebecca Patek's CHASM, directed by Meghan Finn at The Tank (312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues) February 28-March 4. Performances will be Wednesday, February 28 at 7pm, Thursday, March 1 at 11am & 7pm, Friday, March 2 at 7pm, Saturday, March 3 at 7pm, and Sunday, March 4 at 4pm & 7pm. Tickets ($20/$15 students & seniors) are available for advance purchase at www.thetanknyc.org.

The production of CHASM, conceived and performed by Rebecca Patek and directed by Meghan Finn (DOOMOCRACY), was in the works before the #METOO Movement emerged with such force in 2017, but the piece could not be more timely given the current cultural context. It has been four years since Patek's piece ineter(a)nal f/ear played as part of American Realness in 2014. At the time, Patek's work was exploring victimization, as a survivor of rape. It was fast eclipsed when a performance was interrupted by performance artist and provocateur, Ann Liv Young. The events that followed included uproar on social media and in the press, calling Patek's true story into question. This response, and Young's subsequent production about her act of censorship against Patek, effectively re-victimized the artist while she was working to overcome the brutal attack, while also ending her art career.

Now Patek returns to the stage, in collaboration with Tank Co-Artistic Director Meghan Finn, to create CHASM, a performance that looks at the events of 2014 that led Patek to leave the contemporary dance/performance art world. Patek finally gets the chance to tell her side of the story about what went down and why it was fundamentally unjust, and reflects on why she has chosen instead to pursue a career in medicine. In her satirical and ingenious comedic style, this piece reflects on a wider problem in the contemporary performance world still yet to face its own #METOO reckoning.

Rebecca Patek (Choreographer/Performer) is a New York-based choreographer and performance artist creating work that synthesizes dance, theater and comedy. Patek is a Greater New York Artist 2015-16 and a 2014 Brooklyn Arts Exchange Space Grant recipient. She is a inaugural recipient of The Award as well as a 2014 Queer Art Mentorship Fellow. Patek has been an Artist in Residence at Movement Re?search, Atlantic Center for the Arts and at Dance Theater Workshop (New York Live Arts) as part of Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency Program. Patek's work has been presented at MoMa PS1, Impulstanz Vienna (winner of the Prix Jardin D'Europe Fan Award 2014), The Kitchen, The Museum of Arts and Design, The Chocolate Factory Theater, Abrons Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, 92nd Street Y, Movement Research at Judson Church, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, Glasshouse, Chez Bushwick, Triple Canopy, Prelude Festival, The Joyce Soho, Dixon Place, Mulberry Street Theatre, The Tank, Aunts, Triskelion Arts, Studio 303, and The Overture Center, among other venues. She has contributed video and written work to online and print journals: Bomb Magazine, Animal New York, The Performance Club, and Movement Research Journal.

Meghan Finn (Director) joined The Tank as Co-Artistic Director in April of 2017. Recent credits include: DOOMOCRACY by artist Pedro Reyes for Creative Time at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. Sam's Tea Shack by Ben Gassman and Sam Soghor (The Tank and Barker Room Rep), The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman (The Tank/3LD at the Connelly Theater NYTIMES' and TIMEOUTNY CRITICS' PICK); American Power performed by photographer Mitch Epstein and Composer/Cellist Erik Friedlander at the V&A London and The Wexner Center, Columbus, Ohio; Gary Winter's DAREDEVIL at The Brick; The Downtown Loop by Ben Gassman (3LD/3D+ Productions/Teeth of Tooth Atelier); Take Me Home by Alexandra Collier set in a taxi cab (Incubator Arts Project/LPR). Other recent credits include: The Service Road by Erin Courtney (Adhesive Theater Project/NYTIMES Critics' Pick), Motel Cherry by Peggy Stafford (Summerworks Clubbed Thumb/New Georges HERE Arts Center Huffington Post Top 10 of 2012) and 3 2's; or AFAR by Mac Wellman (Dixon Place), Relative Value by Jesse Longman (3LD), Saturn Nights by Jess Barbagallo (Incubator Arts Project), Waltz by Corina Copp (CSC -Weasel), Blue Dress Reduction featuring Eliza Bent (PS122), HIM by E.E. Cummings (Walkerspace), The Fake History of George the Last by Misha Shulman (the longest lunch/TNC), A Week at the NJ Shore by Valerie Work (the longest lunch/The Bushwick Starr, and others). Finn holds an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College and a BA in Theater from the University of Southern California. She was a member of the 2009 Lincoln Center Director's Lab, 2009/10 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, New Georges' The Jam, a 2014 & 2016 New Georges Audrey Resident and co-founder of the longest lunch (2002-present).

The Tank is a non-profit arts presenter serving emerging artists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. We serve over 1,000 artists every year in over 400 performances, and work across all disciplines, including theater, comedy, dance, film, music, public affairs, and storytelling. Our goal is to foster an environment of inclusiveness and remove the burden of cost from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art form.

The heart of our services is providing free performance space in our 98 seat proscenium and 56 seat blackbox that we operate in Manhattan, and we also offer a suite of other services such as free rehearsal space, promotional support, artist fees, and much more. We keep ticket prices affordable and view our work as democratic, opening up both the creation and attendance of the arts to all. Since its founding in 2003, artists who have come through The Tank include Alex Timbers, Amy Herzog, Lucy Alibar, Mike Daisey, Reggie Watts, Kyle Abraham, Andrew Bujalski, We Are Scientists, and tens of thousands of others. www.thetanknyc.org

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