Performa 11 Opens

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Thursday, 27 October 2011 20:25

Written by Adrienne Kehn

Performa 11, the biennial of new visual art performance presented by Performa, will be held in New York City from November 1–21, 2011. The three-week event will showcase new work by more than 100 of the most exciting artists working today, in an innovative program breaking down the boundaries between visual art, music, dance, poetry, fashion, architecture, graphic design, and the culinary arts.

Presented in collaboration with a consortium of more than 50 arts institutions and 25 curators, as well as a network of public spaces and private venues across the city, Performa 11 ignites New York City with energy and ideas, acting as a vital “think tank” linking minds across the five boroughs and bringing audiences together for brilliant new performances in all disciplines.

Founded in 2004 by art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg, Performa is the leading organization dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century.

Performa launched New York’s first performance biennial, Performa 05, in 2005, followed by two more in 2007 and 2009. 

Here is a brief sampling of events you can look forward to:

Spartacus Chetwind
The Lion Tamer
November 2-3
New Museum Project Space
Exploring the truths and fallacies of history making, through chambers and antechambers and among large costumed insects. Live performance, projected film, and interactivity all play a part in this other-worldly experience.

Raphael Zarka
Free Ride
November 5
Performa Institute at the Performa Hub
A two-part project materializes recent research into the "geometry of skateboarding" and its relation to sculpture.

Asli Çavuşoğlu
Words Dash Against The Façade
Friday, November 11, 11:11 am
Tour will begin at the Obelisk (Cleopatra's Needle) on 81st Street behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Asli Çavuşoğlu will create a walking tour on 11.11.11 that will use fortune-telling to scrutinize the ornamental façades of New York City buildings.

Michael Portnoy
Grace, Experimental Comedian
November 12-13
The Performing Garage
Under live direction by the artist, Grace Zabriskie stars as an "experimental comedian."

Laurel Nakadate & James Franco
Three Performances in Search of Tennessee
November 13
Abrons Art Center
For their Performa Commission, Laurel Nakadate and James Franco will create a three-part project based around Tennessee Williams' famous play The Glass Menagerie, involving a Ouija board séance with the playwright, and auditions for a part in the play.

Laurent Montaron
The Invisible Message
November 17-20
An attempt to re-enact an apocryphal 1866 experiment with kites that talk to each other. Mahlon Loomis, a nineteenth-century American dentist and amateur inventor, successfully demonstrated what he called "wireless telegraphy," using electricity in the atmosphere to create a current between two kites flown to exactly the same height, miles apart. Laurent Montaron will restage this experiment at several locations between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

For more things Performa, go to www.performa-arts.org

Performa 11
November 1-21, 2011
Various Locations
New York City