Events
February 20: Saturday Sessions YEMENWED, Light Asylum, and Sabine Gruffat, organized by Michael Bullock
Saturday, February 20, 2010
4:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Order of performances:
4:00pm YEMENWED
4:30pm JAWS
5:00pm LIGHT ASYLUM
5:45pm JAWS 2
YEMENWED
Yemenwed will perform a segment of the piece, Bedroom w TV and
Woman Lays w Aide, originally performed for Performa
09, with a selection of the stage set and original cast.
This piece examines portraits of several characters within an
abstract domestic interior based on a bedroom within the Laguardia Houses,
a public housing project in New York City. In it two women dance in the
semi-enclosed bedroom accompanied by three backup dancers: one human,
one sculpture, and one combination of the two. The movement is set to
live instrumentation including vocals, piano, and drums. The piece is written
by painter Gloria Maximo and explores the formal elements of her
paintings in a live capacity.
Yemenwed is a series of
collaborative projects which brings together an expansive cast of
artists of varied disciplines. Bedroom w TV and Woman Lays w Aide includes the work of: Megha Barnabas, choreography;
Busy Gangnes, additional choreography; Shawn Maximo, set design,
sculpture; Paul Kopkau, sculpture; David Toro and Solomon
Chase, costumes; Melissa Ip, stage makeup; Shannon
Funchess (Light Asylum, A Rose Parade), vocals; Fatima Al
Qadiri (Children), keyboards; and Tim Dewit (Gang Gang Dance),
drums, and music.
SABINE
GRUFFAT
JAWS and JAWS
2 are culled from Sabine Gruffat's ongoing series Video
Animations. These rapid-fire abstract animations employ vivid color
and detailed pattern that guide the viewer from moments of calm to moments
that climax in multiple crescendos. They are created by retooling analog video
synthesizer signals combined with real-time rendered computer graphics through
multiple positive feedback loops. Although inspired by early electronic art and
hardware/software presets, this work is informed by both painterly traditions
and the hardware "modding" movement in computer and gaming culture.
Sabine Gruffat is a French-American artist and Assistant Professor of Digital
Media at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her performance, photography, and
video work deal with the language and cultural significance of both old and new
technologies.
LIGHT ASYLUM
Musicians Shannon Funchess and Bruno Coviello are Williamsburg
Brooklyn's answer to the reemergence of new romantics. Like their predecessors,
they have a penchant for walking on the dark side while carrying the torch to
new dawns of rapturous, post-punk, new wave and industrial sounds. LIGHT ASYLUM
is a musical echoing from the past reverberating against man's foreshadowing,
apocalyptic plight, to destroy what light is still being held up high to guide
us all inward and homeward.
MICHAEL BULLOCK is a New York City based writer and independent curator who regularly
contributes to Apartamento, PIN-UP and BUTT.
