Photos: Inside PS 122's COIL Festival 2012
6 photos
Temporary Distortion's production of "Newyorkland"
<p>Young Jean Lee's <em>UNTITLED FEMINIST SHOW</em>: Theatrical provocateur and winner of the 2011 Spalding Gray award Young Jean Lee unveils her latest experiment, <em>UNTITLED FEMINIST SHOW</em>, in its New York Premiere. Committed as ever to working far outside her comfort zone, Leeâwho is known primarily as a writerâhere creates a nearly wordless spectacle that invites the audience to examine what feminism means to them. </p><p></p><p>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. </p><p> </p>
<p>The New York premiere of <em>Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never.</em> 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 Äavadjda. In a densely layered, high-energy weaving of text and movement, the artists, influenced by Yugoslavian filmmaker DuÅ¡an Makavejev and the work of American philosopher Stanley Cavell, respond to the work of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. </p><p></p><p>Alternately visceral, poetic, grotesque and humorous, this multi-disciplinary work engages the histories of utopianism and revolt in an unjust world. </p><p> </p>
<em>Choreography for Blackboards</em> (US Premiere) by Michael Kliën with Steve Valk (Ireland). <p></p><p>From the show's description: 2001 a space odyssey: the appearance of a massive black monolith heralds a paradigm shift from mindless savage to calculated tool user. Now the monolith reappears in Brooklyn, in the shape of 6 imposing blackboards on a pristine white dance floor.</p><p></p><p>A cast of uniquely abled citizens including Paul Muldoon, "the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War." (The Times Literary Supplement), heavyweight particle physicist Paul Schwarz (CUNY), members of Occupy Wall Street, an investment banker, and bright young things of dance Fitzgerald & Stapleton, surf the cusp of change, modelling potential routes to a new world order.</p><p></p><p>This is state of the art choreography from the most agile thinkers in contemporary dance.</p><p> </p>
<p>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. From the show description: 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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p> </p>
<p>Temporary Distortion's <em>Newyorkland</em>. From the show's description: New York performance group Temporary Distortion merges film, live performance and visual art in <em>Newyorkland</em>, 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. </p><p></p><p>Inspired by first-person accounts from real-life police officers along with popular 1970s cop films and TV police dramas, <em>Newyorkland </em>is staged by director Kenneth Collins in one of the companyâs signature box-like structures. This installation serves as a framework for the both the performersâ restrained acting style and as a canvas for the arresting images of projections designer William Cusick. </p><p> </p>