Day Gleeson: Quality-of-Lifer
February 17 – March 20, 2011
La Mama Galleria is proud to present an exhibition and survey of Day Gleeson’s work, which directly adresses the formal and conceptual metamorphoses of the Lower East Side and East Village neighborhoods over the decades, where the artist lives and continues to work. Gleeson is an artist who has worked collaboratively as well as on her own; her work has been shown in numerous museums and galleries over the years (including the New Museum’s “Fake” show, curated by W. Olander in 1987), and is included in such collections as MoMA’s. Day Gleeson is also a distinguished professor at the Cooper Union School of Art.
“You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is there now.”
“You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it. ” -Colson Whitehead
“Quality-of-Lifer” will be up until March 20th. Gallery hours are: Thursday- Sunday, 1-6pm. A show catalogue will be available for sale after March 5th. for further information, please visit the gallery or contact lamamagalleria@gmail.com
Dancing Divas
May 28 – May 29, 2011 at 7:30pm
Featuring:
Yvonne Rainer
Peggy Choy
Patricia Hoffbauer
Leslie Satin & David Botana
Mary Seidman
Yvonne Rainer “Teaching of 3rd section of Three Satie Spoons”
Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer’s “Three Satie Spoons” was originally a solo dance in three sections choreographed in Robert Dunn’s workshop at the Cunningham studio and performed by the choreographer at the Living Theater in 1961.
Peggy Choy “Pow”
Peggy Choy, Dancer: Toni Renee Johnson
Inspired by Muhammad Ali–his life, legacy, and his lineage–the Peggy Choy Dance Company explores Ali’s fight for justice by re-imagining the seminal moments in his struggle while packing a punch with a fusion of the martial arts and hip-hop dance that is directly inspired by the greatest boxer of all time. This homage includes reflection upon his fighter bloodline via his daughter, Laila Ali, making this performance true evidence of a Diva with a twist.
Patricia Hoffbauer “For This Reason, I am Naming This Dance”
Patricia Hoffbauer
“For This Reason I Am Naming This Dance” is a playfull look at the creative process. Created with the graduating class of NYU Tisch’s School of The Arts, this work deals with process, performance, virtuosity, collective creative process, objects, text, and humor.
- Risa Jaroslow
Leslie Satin & David Botana “Nine Squares (Private)”
Leslie Satin & David Botana
“In Nine Squares (Private)”, two people (David Botana and Leslie Satin) trace a series of encounters, images, and suggestions of narrative within a geometric landscape.
Mary Seidman “The Messier Project”
Mary Seidman
Mary Seidman and Dancers premieres excerpts of the company’s newest evening length work: The Messier Project, a modern dance work for six stunningly beautiful dancers with composer Bruce Lazarus’ live piano performance of four sections of his original musical score, Messier Catalogue of Star Clusters and Nebulae. Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History, adds 3-D video projections, flying the audience on a journey through the stars.
Mediated Motion
May 24 – May 29, 2011
Curated by Billy Clark and Lindsey Medeiros of Culturehub
Opening May 24th 7 PM – 9 PM / 25th – 28th 1PM – 6PM
Please join us for the opening of Mediated Motion, a dance and media art exhibit which showcases 15 artists from around the world. The diverse works explore how video and new media technologies alter human movement and our perception of the body in motion. Map
Featured Artists Include:
How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store
By Forty Hour Club
May 19 – June 5, 2011
How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store
Unbridled Passion … An unspeakable crime
A dramatic performance and installation by Playwright Mike Gorman and Artist Gregory De La Haba
fortyhourclub.com / delahaba.com
A homeless playwright turns the tables on the patronizing Artistic Director of a downtown theater to pull off a potent Page Six story headline, if not the most absurd heist of all time. Featuring video, photography, cheese and a life-size taxidermy horse.
NYTheatre.com’s People of the Year
Posted December 16, 2010 at 12:43 pm
NYTheatre.com’s People of the Year
Every year at about this time, nytheatre.com announces our list of the 15 people and/or companies who have been particularly noteworthy in making the past year an interesting and exciting one for the NYC indie theater scene. These are theatre artists who have been prolific, versatile, and generous with their talents, and we are happy to celebrate their achievements! READ MORE >>
JapJAP
May 9, 2011 at 8:00pm
JapJAP
written and performed by Una Aya Osato
directed by Moises Belizario
JapJAP is trying to find out who she is, tearing down borders and tearing off clothes. Her body is her only road map as she embarks on a journey through identity, culture, and history. Join award-winning team, performer/playwright Una Aya Osato and director Moises Belizario, for Una’s newest, freshest, full-bodied one-woman show: JapJAP.
Una Aya Osato (writer/performer) is excited to return to Poetry Electric with her newest show JapJAP. A performer, writer and educator, born and raised in NYC, Una recently returned from a successful tour in Canada of sold-out shows and critical acclaim for her award winning show Recess. Una has performed her own work and the work of others in an array of venues nationally and internationally: from theaters, to classrooms, to community centers, to prisons.
Moises Belizario (director) has worked professionally for the last two and half decades as a writer, director and actor in film, television and theater. He is currently the Artistic Director of the nationally acclaimed CityKids Repertory Company, in New York City. Belizario has had extensive experience working with youth in leadership development and the performing arts. Belizario and Una have worked together for many years, among their exciting work together was directing her in Recess. In addition to his directorial work with Una, and at The CityKids Foundation, he is also currently in development for a new Broadway musical.
Village Voice Review: Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte
Posted December 15, 2010 at 12:13 am
John Kelly Channels Painter Egon Schiele As He Breathes, Ducks, and Dies Through Art
by Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice
I doubt that Egon Schiele, the Viennese Expressionist painter, could dance—beyond, perhaps, a clumsy waltz. Nor was he much of a singer. At least—unlike the brilliant theater artist John Kelly in his portrait of Schiele, Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte—he would not have attempted the airy jumps with which Giselle expresses her metamorphosis into a Wili in the second-act spirit world of the 1841 ballet. Nor can you imagine Schiele singing, in a soft, faltering, emotion-laden countertenor, the aria delivered by the maddened Margherita in Boito’s opera Mefistofele after she has thrown her infant into the sea. READ MORE >>
New York Times Review: Pass The Blutwurst, Bitte
Posted December 13, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Egon Schiele Seen From Many Angles
by Ben Brantley, New York Times
Egon Schiele is dancing with himself again. The Viennese Expressionist artist — who died in 1918 but has been regularly reincarnated by the American performance artist John Kelly — can once more be found performing an angular pas de trois with two mirror images at the Ellen Stewart Theater at La MaMa. And if you haven’t ever seen Egon and his Alter Egons (that’s what they’re called), you have missed one of the sweetest testaments to artistic self-involvement ever staged. READ MORE >>
Paper: Interview With John Kelly
Posted at 10:00 am
Stage Notes: Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte
by Tom Murrin, Paper
Performer and visual artist John Kelly’s marvelous career has spanned 30 years, and he just received a NEA 2010 American Masterpiece grant. To many, Kelly is known for his uncanny assumption of the singing star Joni Mitchell — even Joni likes it. But he is a playwright, performer, choreographer, director and painter as well. Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte is a five-person ensemble piece about the Viennese expressionist painter, Egon Schiele (1890-1918), and earned Kelly an Obie when first done at Dance Theater Workshop in 1986. It was revived in 1995 at La Mama. The show features dancing, on-stage drawing, film (by Anthony Chase), live and recorded music, and is a true dance theater masterpiece. I spoke with Kelly, who plays Schiele. READ MORE >>
Backstage Review: Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte
Posted December 10, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Pass The Blutwurst, Bitte
by Mitch Montgomery, Backstage.com
The key events in Viennese painter Egon Schiele’s short life may easily fit on a cue card, but it seems that his work’s aesthetic and detached eroticism can be endlessly expounded upon without ever saying a word. Known for his gnarled, twisty figure work and some pornography charges, the early-20th-century expressionist is the subject of John Kelly’s acclaimed “Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte,” which returns to La MaMa after 15 years. Though I am unfamiliar with previous incarnations of this largely silent dance piece, which premiered in 1986, it is safe to say that Kelly’s sharp, contorted choreography still cuts like a knife, aloofly expressing Schiele’s life and work in his own crooked milieu. READ MORE >>
Backstage Review: The Orphans
Posted December 7, 2010 at 4:17 pm
The Orphans
By A.J. Mell, Backstage
An unusual blend of physical theater, science fiction, and political parable, “The Orphans” is notable not so much for its literary qualities as for its sinuous physical expressiveness. Karina Casiano wears a lot of hats here—she’s the writer, director, and half of the cast, along with the dynamic Daniel Irizarry—but she also has the chops and clarity of vision to pull it off.
Most dystopian stories feature an oppressive totalitarian state whose fingers reach into every aspect of private life. “The Orphans” twists the formula (and sticks it to the Tea Party and other free-market absolutists) by portraying a nightmarish laissez-faire New York in which even air and water are under corporate control. The story concerns a recently laid-off pharmaceutical salesman (Irizarry) who joins an underground militia; his contact is Casiano, who strikes alarming poses and spouts militant rhetoric from inside a kind of isolation chamber made from an old phone booth. Eventually, their boundaries crumble, and the two become lovers, until news of a popular uprising intrudes upon their idyll.
New York Theater Review: The Orphans
Posted at 3:56 pm
The Orphans at La MaMa
by Jody Christopherson, New York Theater Review
The Orphans, presented by La MaMa E.T.C., a new work by Karina Casiano, performed and directed by Karina Casiano and Daniel Irizarry is a physical futuristic exploration of the terrorism of disconnection from natural impulses. Casiano and Irizarry create a world of physical anxiety where people are catalogued and identified by DNA samples. Both play terrorists bombing the pharmaceutical companies that sedate their mounting anxieties over the increasingly disconnected modern world where carnal pleasure, music, and cigarettes are forbidden.
Deliciously betrayed by their natural impulses bodies rebel by doing the forbidden. . . making contact.
Financial Times Review: Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte
Posted at 3:16 pm
Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte, La MaMa, New York
by Brendan Lemon, Financial Times
According to the programme for the transfixing Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte, John Kelly, the director/ choreographer/central performer of the piece, recently starred in a film directed by James Franco called The Clerk’s Tale. Nothing could be more inevitable. Like Franco, Kelly wears many hats: writer, actor, painter, musician, dancer, singer. And, like Franco, Kelly excites comment among those for whom the uncategorisable creative soul causes confusion rather than celebration.
In a career that has spanned more than three decades, Kelly has been drawn to other artists who defy pigeonholing, such as Jean Cocteau. Just as often, he has been inspired by the transgressive spirits who, true to the needs of Romantic mythology, die at an age we moderns consider premature. Caravaggio, for instance, will be the subject of his next piece, The Escape Artist, premiering in New York in April.
Tracing the Unseen Border
April 21 – May 22, 2011
Participating artists:
Alberto Borea, Monika Bravo, Tania Candiani, caraballo-farman, Sergio de la Torre, Blane De St. Croix, Ricardo Gonzalez, M & X, Teresa Margolles, Tom McGrath, Irvin Morazan, Richard Mosse, Alex Rivera, Javier Tellez, Patricia A. Valencia, Ishmael Randall Weeks, and Judi Werthein.
New York Magazine Review: Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte
Posted at 12:49 am
Artist Meets Artist in John Kellyʻs Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte
by Scott Brown, New York Magazine
About a quarter-century ago, the unclassifiable performance artist John Kelly—trained dancer, untrained singer, an exuberant collagist but a scrupulous avoider of camp—debuted a nearly wordless multimedia show based on the life and art of the pioneering Expressionist painter Egon Schiele. He’s performing it again, for the final time, and I’d recommend you take a look, even if the title sounds like a joke to you, an Onion-headline version of performance art at its most obtuse. (Confession: In my ignorance, I had a good long laugh when the invitation arrived in my inbox. Meat plus performance art equals easy punchline!) But Kelly, now in his fifties, is an honest and hypertalented stage artist, a conceptualist who doesn’t over-rely on concept, and though his show appears largely unchanged (based on what I’ve read about the original), I suspect the additional years have added some intriguing new crinkles to this portrait of an artist who died a very young man.
TheaterMania Review: Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte
Posted December 6, 2010 at 11:56 am
Pass The Blutwurst, Bitte
By Dan Bacalzo, TheaterMania.com
Sharp, angular movements characterize much of the choreography within John Kelly’s Obie Award-winning dance-theater piece, Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte, now being revived at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre. The visually arresting performance is based on the life and work of Austrian painter Egon Schiele, an early 20th century Expressionist. READ MORE >>
eClectiC eLectriC: RARITIES night at La MaMa
By Jackie Sheeler
April 18, 2011 at 8:00pm
A lineup of electrifying but elusive performers that NYC knows and loves yet doesn’t hear from nearly often enough!
Joel Allegretti
Joel Allegretti
Joel Allegretti is a guitarist and songwriter whose influences embrace Anglo-American balladry, blues, Celtic traditions and even the sounds of India and the Middle East. He occasionally performs as one half of Blue Egypt.
Magdalena Alagna Schmidt
Magdalena Alagna Schmidt
Magdalena Schmidt is a dilettante whose midlife crisis thus far has been indistinguishable from her existential crises that began in childhood when she first discovered regular visits to the dentist are a part of life.
Chris Brandt
Chris Brandt
Chris Brandt is a writer, activist, teacher, translator, carpenter, furniture designer, and theatre worker. His brand-new spoken word CD, “14” is being released on 4/18 and will make its world debut at the Electric Rarities show.
Meagan Brothers
Meagan Brothers
Meagan Brothers’ poetry has recently appeared in Night Bomb Press, Wormwood Press, and on Poetz.com. She also writes young adult fiction; her first novel, Debbie Harry Sings in French, was published in 2008, and her next YA novel entitled Supergirl Mixtapes is due out in winter of 2012.
Maggie Dubris
Maggie Dubris
Maggie Dubris is a writer and musician who lives in New York City. She was the guitarist for the band Homer Erotic, and is the author of WillieWorld, Weep Not, My Wanton, Skels, and In The Dust Zone.
Aaron Hyzen
Aaron Hyzen
Aaron Hyzen is a Harlem-based musician and songwriter for the indie rock band Quickly Quietly, which is releasing an EP later this year. In a rare solo performance, he will be playing some of his originals on guitar and keyboard.
Larissa Shmailo
Larissa Shmailo
Larissa Shmailo is a poet, writer and Russian translator. Her recent book of poetry is In Paran (BlazeVox Books).
Jackie Sheeler
Jackie Sheeler
Jackie Sheeler is a multitasking mofo as well known for juxtaposing divergently brilliant artists at the many NYC shows she’s developed as she is for her own written and WordRocking poetic creations. She is delighted to once again don her MC cap as host of this eClectiC eLectriC, and will be debuting some new work of her own that night.
In Memory of Louis Laurita
It is with great sadness that we inform you that Louis Laurita passed away November 28, 2010.
Louis was a great artist, friend and longtime member of the La MaMa family. Louis was an invaluable part of the curatorial team at La MaMa La Galleria, as well as, a frequent contributor in solo and group shows. Our hearts go out to Louis’ family, David Adams and all the many friends and colleagues who knew and loved him.
Below is an excerpt from the obituary in the NJ paper:
LAURITA Louis Robert, age 51 of New York City (formerly of Cresskill), on November 28, 2010. Beloved son of Alice and Louis Michael Laurita. Loving brother of Susan Laurita. Louis was a graduate of Cooper Union College in New York City, a renowned artist and was a manager for Eastdil in NYC.
Friends may call at the Barrett Funeral Home 148 Dean Dr Tenafly on
Tuesday 7-9 PM and
Wednesday 2-4 and 7-9 PM.
Funeral Mass Thursday 9:30 AM at
St Therese Church Cresskill
Interment Brookside Cemetery Englewood.
In lieu of flowers donations may be made to The S.L.E. Lupus Foundation 330 7th Ave Suite 1701 New York, NY 10001.
Barrett Funeral Home
148 Dean Drive,
Tenafly, New Jersey
201-568-8043
barrettfh@optimum.net
By Mass Transit
From the Port Authority (42nd St. & 8th Ave.), NYC, to Tenafly Station (walking distance to funeral home)
NJ Transit Bus 166 — frequent service — 45 minute trip, OR
Red & Tan Lines Bus 20 — less frequent service — 35 minute trip
From the George Washington Bridge Bus Station (Fort Washington & Broadway bet. 178th & 179th St.), NYC, to Tenafly Station (walking distance to funeral home)
- Red & Tan Bus 84
St. Therese Church in Cresskill
120 Monroe Avenue
Cresskill, NJ 07626-1498
(201) 567-2528
Winter Sun: A Celebration of Traditional Music from the Carpathians
By Yara Arts Group
December 26, 2010 at 2:30pm & 7:30pm
A theatrical celebration featuring Carpathian musicians and winter song singers from around the world.
This new show is created by Virlana Tkacz and based on traditional nativity puppet play will feature the Koliadnyky, Yara Arts Group, Aurelia Shrenker, Eva Salina Primack, Julian Kytasty, Kat Yew, Deanna Klapishchack, Yuliyan Yordanov, Valeriy Zhmud, Shigeko Suga, Paul Brantley, Alexander Katreczko, Ron Lawrence, Kiku Sakai and special guests with winter songs from around the world. The event includes original videos on the Koliada, samples of a traditional ritual food – kutia, a wheat berry porridge with honey and nuts. Vit Horejs will present a marionette version of the “Snow Maiden.” The event is presented by La MaMa Experimental Theater and Yara Arts Group.
The singers and musicians of Koliadnyky are all from the Carpathian Mountains. Ivan Zelenchuk, is the “bereza,” lead singer. He comes from an old Kryvorivnia family and is the son of Ivan Zelenchuk, whose handwritten notebook of winter songs has helped to preserve this tradition despite the persecution under the Soviet rule. Now in his fifties, Ivan considers his involvement in the Koliada his personal mission. Mykola Zelenchuk, the son of Ivan, proudly carries on the tradition of his forefathers, both as a winter song singer and the best trembita (mountain long horn) player in the village. He also makes the traditional costumes for the winter song singers. He has taken part in Yara productions and was featured in its Still the River Flows at La MaMa (2008). Mykola Ilyuk is a master fiddler and plays on most traditional instruments of the Carpathians, including the trembita (mountain long horn). He is director of the renowned Hutsul instrumental ensemble and has his own museum of musical instruments from the area. Vasyl Tymchuk plays the tsymbaly (hammer dulcimer) and teaches children to play Hutsul instruments. Ostap Kostyuk plays the duda (bagpipes) and various flutes and represents the newest generation that has become expert in this ancient tradition.
Instruments played by the Koliadnyky include the trembita (Carpathian mountain horn), which is made of a hollowed pine tree that has been struck by lightning and wrapped in birch bark. Trembitas are used primarily in the mountain pastures. In the villages they are only used during the Koliada and at funerals. Fiddles are played in the Carpathian style. The musicians also play the duda (bagpipes made from a goat), tsymbaly (hammer dulcimer), drumby (jaw harps) and a variety of hand-made Carpathian flutes.
Yara Arts Group began collaborating with traditional artists from the Carpathians in 2003 and has developed performances with them in Kyiv and New York. Products of this collaboration include the theatre pieces Koliada: Twelve Dishes and Still the River Flows at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. Photographs and video of the koliada ritual in the village of Kryvorivnia have been exhibited at the RA Gallery in Kyiv, La Galleria and Ukrainian Institute in New York, Spring Street Gallery in Saratoga Springs and a major art installation at the Ukrainian Museum in New York. This year Yara celebrated its 20th anniversary and presented its newest show, Scythian Stones, at La MaMa in New York and at international festivals in Kyiv and Kyrgyzstan.
Christmas in Nickyland 2010
December 18 – December 19, 2010
Just in time for the holidays, La MaMa presents Nicky Paraiso as the master of ceremonies for the ultimate holiday cabaret. Each night there will be a holy host of characters singing, dancing, gender-bending, and merry making, all to get you into the East Village spirit of the season.
Performances by: The Alien Comic aka Tom Murrin, Mike Albo, Jim Andralis & Larry Krone, Betsy Bates, Ellen Fisher, Ching Gonzalez, Joseph Keckler, Jon Kinzel & Vicky Shick, Patricia Hoffbauer & George Emilio Sanchez, Ishmael Houston-Jones & Yvonne Meier, Matt Nasser, Edgar Oliver, Chris Tanner & Lance Cruce, and other special guest artists TBA!
Nicky’s critically acclaimed one-man shows Asian Boys, Houses and Jewels and House/Boy have been presented at La MaMa ETC, Dixon Place, PS122, Dance Theater Workshop and on tour.