The Dysfunctional Collective to Feature Art, Theater, Music & Dance on Governors Island This Summer

Dysfunctional Theatre Company presents The Dysfuncational Collective, featuring the works of Shana Pederson, Parts & Labor Vintage Outfitters, Mel DeLancey, Rebecca Davis, GeminiCollisionworks, Dysfunctional Theatre Company, The Pragmatists, The Dysfunctional Swingers, Story Gym & the Fifth Wall and Tribeca Lab, weekends through September 27 at Nolan Park on Governors Island.

The Dysfunctional Collective turns House 8B on Nolan Park into a grab box of art, poetry, dance, theater and song. Each week new works will be offered, usually with a focus on Governors Island or New York City as a whole. Stop by any time between 12-5 to see photos and artwork from local artists, have your picture snapped, hear a song, see a short play or just explore the house with us.

The Dysfunctional Collective, presented by Dysfunctional Theater Company will play at in House 8B at Nolan Park on Governors Island. Dates and times: Saturdays and Sundays through September 26th from 12-5pm each day. The Dysfunctional Collective is a full summer of art, theater, music and dance presented for free to the public on Governors Island as part of their OpenHouseGI program.

For more information on the Collective go to www.dysfunctionaltheatre.org. For more information on visiting Governors Island, go to www.govisland.com.

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Performance/Installation Information:

I ♥ Show Tunes - Sundays, May 31st - June 28th, July 12th & 19th

Downtown princess and musical theater enthusiast Mel DeLancey sings her favorites from the Broadway genre, personalizing each old song with personal stories, history lessons, and even sketch comedy!

Chairs - Weekends, May 30th- July 26th

Started as a joke, "The Chair Project" has turned into a larger collaboration with several people finding, photographing and naming street chairs. The chairs are always found in the wild, never manipulated and always have a story or title. The Chair Project, now in its 10th year, is the long term art project of Shana Pederson, a mixed media artist with a BFA from Hunter College. Her primary focus, in addition to chairs, is her annual "street art" projects. More Info available at www.shanapedersonart.com

Parts & Labor Vintage Outfitters - Weekends, June 6th-June 28th

Parts & Labor Vintage Outfitters is husband and wife team - Paul and Tina Montrone. We have a passion for everything "old" and love to take things we've found along the way to create something new. With a focus on vintage wheels, toys and tools, visit us for cool visual art pieces that you won't see elsewhere.

small female - June 20th - 21st, 27th - 28th

small female will work toward a public expression of internal experience, to foster awareness and dialogue about the cyclical nature of healing and trauma. Using art installation, dance, and monologue, the piece will explore the complex relationship between one's body, emotional feeling, and memory. Audience members are invited to take space to reflect, write, and share. Rebecca Gray Davis is a small female (4'11.5"), who has been performing and creating theatre since she stopped getting taller. www.rebeccagraydavis.com

Nord Hausen Fly Robot - Weekends, July 4th- July 19th

A paranoid rant? A schizophrenic's tragic delusion? An internet troll's computer-generated word salad? All of the above? NORD HAUSEN FLY ROBOT is an investigation by Gemini CollisionWorks (Ian W. Hill: Arts/Berit Johnson: Crafts) into a 54-page anonymous online comment left on a political website that first seems nothing more than an incomprehensible, stream-of-consciousness tirade, but on repeated examination suggests a poetic, albeit confused, summary of the last 60 years of US History. Suspecting that within this text lies the seeds of a future theater work, GCW will be spending three July weekends on Governors Island - appropriate, given the writer's obsession with the military-industrial complex - creating and refining an installation with the text itself - a kind of live hypertext annotation on the walls of the space - accompanied by a complex audio arrangement of the words and supporting sound and music. Also, twice each day, groups of actors will work with the company for an hour on possible performance strategies for the piece, reading, moving, discussing, as we see if, as suspected, there is a rich and beautiful piece of stagecraft to be found at the heart of this sad, confused, anonymous cry from the heart.

Summer to Your Heart- July 25th & 26th, August 15th & 16th, September 26th & 27th

From the creators of I Shall Forget You Presently (winner - Audience Choice Award, FRIGID Festival 2014) comes Summer to Your Heart, an immersive experience based on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Wander across the green lawn of Nolan Park to the yellow house marked 8B. Songs on the porch lead into rooms full of poetry and scenes from the life of a woman who captured love, defined feminism and shaped the 20th century.

The Paper House - Weekends, August 1st- August 9th

What will you find in the Paper House? Pages from a nostalgic, ephemeral world. Joys and fears. Story time and secret nooks. Imaginary friends and guiding spirits. A library of books that don't exist. A garden of unearthly delights. A never-ending tea party. A dark burrow for hiding. All of it crafted from the simple materials of our childhood - paper, paint, crayons, tape. The Pragmatists, along with a dreamy roster of visual, sound and performance artists, invite you to collaborate on bringing to life this 2-D adventure house, where, no matter your age, you can escape from the grown-up world.

The Dysfunctional Swingers - August 13th & 14th, September 6th, 20th, & 27th

Swing the summer afternoons away with The Dysfunctional Swingers featuring Emily Edwards and Jon Hoche. Enjoy watching the skills of these two veteran performers as they perform to the sounds of classic swing songs. Take part in a free basic group lesson, then put what you know to use on the open dance floor. Perfect for all levels and ages! Emily has performed swing all over the city for the past 9 years including Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center, Pier 84, and Special Events at Dance Manhattan. Jon is a professional actor who has performed all over the country and is a huge swing dance enthusiast.

Proof Positive - Weekends, August 22nd- August 30th

Hundreds of old photos, spanning generations of a family, have been found in an abandoned and dilapidated house on Governors Island. What family secrets do they hide, what violence do they conceal? Scan the photographs on the walls using an app on your smartphone or tablet for audio and video clues that will help you unravel the mystery of what really happened in the house in this interactive, multimedia story installation.

Amalgamation - Weekends, September 5th- 27th

A group show of New York artists, curated by Marissa Levien

The art works displayed in "Amalgamation" all examine a type of transformation- what happens when a million tiny pieces come together to create an entirely new entity? What is the process of that, and what is the result? We find systems such as these throughout the world, both natural and man-made: Billions of individual cells come together to form a human being, hundreds of single starlings come together to form a dynamic cloud (also known as a murmuration), an oppressive bundle of rages are cut and sewn together to form a newly-beautiful family quilt. These are everyday occurrences, and yet it never fails that there is a sense of wonder present when one thinks about these complex systems. With "Amalgamation", it is that sense of wonder that we seek to investigate.

POE HOUSE - Weekends, September 5th - 20th

Edgar Allan Poe's beloved young wife Virginia fell gravely ill in a house identical to the one you are visiting. POE descended into a hallucinatory depression. Fearing the worst for POE, his friends converged on this house to lift him out of despair by performing his greatest works in song, dance, and unavoidably macabre antics. POE's visitors include, amongst others, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Baudelaire (Poe's French translator), Balzac, Charlotte Bronte, and... YOU! Refreshments Served. Please Advise If You Are Taking Heart Medication.

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