El Club MEG – May 4
Part of LaMaMa’s
Emerging Choreographers Program
Guest Curated by Martita Abril and Blaze Ferrer
El Club MEG
Featuring work-in-progress performance snippets by Arantxa Araujo, Josie Bettman, Hannah Kallenbach, Joey Kipp, and Coco Villa.
El Club MEG an afternoon of performance snippets by some of today’s most electrifying contemporary performance artists, wrapped up with a karaoke session with Le Papi Shiitake. It’s a whirlwind of unapologetic faggotry, confident psychosis, compelling movement, and power ballads.
Photo of Arantxa Araujo by Matan Tzinamon
FEATURED ARTISTS
ARANTXA ARAUJO
Photo by Rodrigo Jardon
Cuerpos que Crujen: Huesos y Sabritas
ABOUT
This movement piece draws inspiration from Mexican culture, intertwining the crunch of Sabritas, the rhythmic echoes of corridos, and the visceral sound of cracking bones. Through body sounds and feelings, it explores the tension of stress and resilience, creating a sensory experience that connects the physical and emotional. Projections may further enhance the narrative.
CREDITS
Choreography & Performance: Arantxa Araujo
BIOS
Arantxa Araujo is a queer Mexicana and dynamic performance artist whose work blends her background in neuroscience with cultural production and organization. Rooted in feminist ideologies and bio-behavioral research, her art manifests as meditative, multisensory experiences that promote awareness, personal growth, and societal change. Araujo utilizes the metaphor of a neuron’s physiology, drawing from diverse influences, including dance, philosophy, and somatic practices, to create multiform outputs in video, photography, sculpture, and installation. Her work addresses themes of identity, immigration, and community from a queer immigrant feminist perspective, challenging societal norms and advocating for diverse expressions. Araujo’s art has been showcased at notable venues such as the Brooklyn Museum, the Queens Museum, Ex Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City, and international festivals including Nuit Blanche in Saskatoon, Canada.
Website: arantxaaraujo.com
Instagram: @ArantxaAraujo
JOSIE BETTMAN
Photo by Zhi Wei Hiu
ABOUT
a day in the life of a girl, a day in the life of a river.
she’s testing out some theories she has about the possibility of having free will, but it seems every step forward tangles her further in a fate that looks ready to swallow her up.
she tries reproducing herself, maybe that will give her a foothold to remain in the real.
they tell her she’s crazy, so she proves them right.
CREDITS
Choreography and Performance: Josie Bettman
BIOS
Josie Bettman is an artist dedicated to transformation. She investigates self-creation as a mode of living, a gesture of survival that synthesizes the imaginary with the actual to render a future, a future running on energy redirected from efforts to disavow it. Her recent creative partners include Zhi Wei Hiu, Anna Therese Witenberg, Celes Gutierrez, hannah baer, and Lavinia Eloise Bruce. Recent performance venues include Kestrels, Pageant, Cathy Weis Projects, Bossa Nova Civic Club, Galerie les Filles du Calvaire, and Printed Matter Art Book Fair.
Website: josiebettman.com
Instagram: @scum_network
HANNAH KALLENBACH
Photo by Rebecca Steighner
ABOUT
A meet and greet with Mickey Mouse.
CREDITS
Performance: Hannah Kallenbach
BIOS
Hannah Kallenbach (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based actor and performance artist whose work takes many forms in various mediums, from durational site-specific installations to multi-media devised works to solo experimental theater shows. She has written and performed numerous original pieces at venues such as Ars Nova, Triskelion, JACK, Collapsable Hole, Silent Barn, 80 WSE Gallery, The Tank, The Brick, Vital Joint, Life World and Dixon Place. She has participated in festivals such as The Exponential Festival, Radical Acts Festival, The Prelude Festival, ?!:New Works, and SalOn!.
Website: hannahkallenbach.com
Instagram: @gloppyho
JOEY KIPP
Photo by James C. Daher
ABOUT
faggotry, hook-ups w/ ghosts, slime, solely the body, zero to 100, possession, horror, horny demons, chalk, was it DEI or REI? i’m white i’m definitely surviving White Lotus.
CREDITS
Choreography and Performance: Joey Kipp
BIOS
Joey Kipp is a Queer Afro-Latinx-Brazilian Brooklyn-based artist. Joey collaborates and works with Cynthia Madansky, Biba Bell, Blaze Ferrer, Ani Taj, Sunny Hitt, Steven Hoggett, Chelsey Arce, Rachel Klein, Pioneers Go East Collective, Heidi Latsky Dance, Bill T. Jones, David Byrne, Dance Heginbotham, and Heather Kravas. In 2019 he was in residency at the Rauschenberg Foundation with Heather Kravas, Vic Haven, and Zeena Parkins. Joey was featured in The New York Times and their online project Speaking in Dance. Joey has shown work at the 14th st. Y for their PRIDE FEST, Movement Research at Judson, the Gotham Roller Derby, Roulette, NYU Tisch, San Jose State University, Marymount Manhattan College, The Center (NYC’s LGBTQAI+ center), and Performance Space NY.
Instagram: @jkippster
Coco Villa
ZAZA NO.2
A work-in-progress performance by Coco Villa.
CREDITS
Choreography and Performance: Coco Villa
BIOS
Coco Villa is a dancer, interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. They lead an art-research practice investigating relations between spirit, body, object, and landscape. Their work spans across disciplines of performance, costume design, photography, film, and installation. Driven by historical and scientific discovery, Villa thrives in the ocean, in the woods, in the dance studio, and darkroom, playfully creating by hand.
Website: casadecoco.space
Instagram: @c0c0villa
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival
20th Anniversary
Click here to see list of shows for La MaMa Moves! 20th Anniversary.
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival continues to support La MaMa’s commitment to presenting diverse performance styles that challenge audience’s perception of dance by featuring performance/installations, experimental film screenings & public symposiums which address dance artists’ engagement with the current political climate, as well as honoring diasporic histories and legacy, ancestral inspirations and inter-generational dialogue.
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