Love is crazy...or so says Justin Vivian Bond

CDs by singer/performance artist
Justin Vivian Bond

It's no small matter that two people--myself and an arts presenter I know--exclaimed the same words as we left Justin Vivian Bond's one-night concert, Love is Crazy, at FIAF: "So inspiring!"

On the subway trip back downtown, we conferred and agreed: It's the kind of performance that makes you want to look for and bring out your own best. I remember watching Ben Kingsley act in Gandhi and quitting a soul-snuffing job the very next day. I'm not yet sure what Bond's example--or any other part of FIAF's Crossing the Line fest--might inspire me to do in coming days, but V, I'm all ears.

Loosely strung around a theme of love, Love is Crazy found Bond (aka V) in warmly relaxed and sincere, if glamorous, form. V opened with the '40s jazz standard "Angel Eyes," the singer allowing this boozy torch song an unadorned reading, quite right, that only faltered in its final moment. Without an ending note to tether it, "Excuse me while I disappear...." really did seem to dissipate into the ether. But inspiration need not require perfection, as V laughingly proved throughout the show.

Over the next 80 or so minutes, Bond pushed on, recovering voice, energy and wild mind. It's not every songwriter/chanteuse--transgender or otherwise--who would think to source Peggy Lee and Aleister Crowley simultaneously. Nor is it every singer who can build from a husky hush to a voice that makes you feel the scalding steam coming off Sinnerman's boiling seas and fear its devil.

Justin Vivian Bond sings a song by being alert and wholy alive within it. That's the teaching.

The set drew from V's Dendrophile (2011) and Silver Wells (2012) recordings, with selections like Mark Eitzel's furious "Patriot Heart" and Bambi Lake's "The Golden Age of Hustlers," fierce and picturesque dramas from the queer red light zone. We were also invited along quiet strolls through Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" and The Cure's "Lovesong." In the latter, V's sensitive accompanists--Matt Ray (musical director/piano), guitarist Nathann Carrera and violinist Claudia Chopek--knew when to hold off and when to fill in and support the simple lyrics and wispy melody.

Bond clearly relished v's folkish duet with guest artist Miguel Gutierrez--better known as an award-winning choreographer--and even got a chance to display a few dance licks. The highlight of Gutierrez's segment was his version of "Smalltown Boy," an '80s hit by Bronski Beat; if you saw Marissa Perel's recent work, More Than Just a Piece of Sky, at The Chocolate Factory, you heard Gutierrez's recording of this song. Gutierrez, though no Jimmy Somerville, has a haunting shimmer to his voice and beautiful delivery.

Visit Justin Vivian Bond's site (photo, videos, the works) here.

For news of the Miguel Gutierrez universe, go here.

For details on FIAF's 2014 Crossing the Line Festival, which runs through October 20, click here.

Queer/Art/Mentorship in New York City

Filmmaker Ira Sachs announces Queer/Art/Mentorship (QAM), a program dedicated to pairing and supporting mentorship between queer working artists in New York City. Sarah Schulman, Pamela Sneed, John Kelly, Barbara Hammer, Justin Vivian Bond, Hilton Als, Jennie Livingston and Jonathan David Katz are among the many distinguished mentors participating in this unique program.

For information, visit the QAM site here, and also see this Scavenger article.

East Village: Goodbye to all that

In the East Village, Waiting for the Wrecking Ball
by Cara Buckley, The New York Times, July 15, 2011

Eva's Grabbag.1

Let's be frank: In New York, there's so much to do, see, hear, read, think AND write about that it's impossible to keep up with it all. (As you folks post your events on Facebook and email your press releases, just imagine my hands thrown up in a mixture of overwhelm and surrender.) So, every now and then, I'm just going to toss out some quick recommendations for InfiniteBody readers to consider and hope you'll step forward and take it from there.

I think I'll just call this Eva's Grabbag!

Eva's Grabbag.1

Dance critic Jennifer Homans (The New Republic) gave a fascinating talk and Q&A about her critically-acclaimed, Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet, at 92Y Tribeca this afternoon. After listening to Homans trace the intricate, mutually transformative connections between classical ballet and the societies that birthed and nurtured it, I'm ready to take the complete journey with her. I enjoyed her clear, lively analysis, her embodied perspective as a former ballerina and her obvious passion for her subject. "Dancing--ballet, in particular--was one of the most powerful experiences of my life," she told us, and this sounds like a valuable and powerful book. (Random House, 2010)

Coming up at Joe's Pub--Sandra Bernhard and Justin Vivian Bond in Arts & Crafts:

"...country cousins whose lives have led them in very different directions. One went from being a rock chick to born again motherhood in the Midwest and the other from small town gay to urban art world sophisticate. When the two meet up again at a family wedding they set of on a journey rediscovering their authentic selves and learning that ideology doesn't mean much when stacked up against art love and really good acid." March 7, 7:30 and 9pm. Get info and tickets.

Salsa, baby! Lehman Center for the Performing Arts presents its 30th Anniversary Gala Concert with the legendary Ruben Blades ("El Poeta") and Gilberto Santa Rosa ("El Caballero de la Salsa") performing together for the first time! Saturday, February 26, 8pm. Get info and tickets.

American Tap Dance Foundation presents TAP TALKS / TAP FILMS on Sunday, February 20, 1:30pm: Juanita Pitts: Race, Gender and the Female Hoofer (video and history). Presentation by Margaret Morrison. Free for registered ATDC students. $5 general admission. American Tap Dance Center, 154 Christopher Street, Manhattan. Get info or call 646-230-9564.

More grabbags to come soon! Everybody have a fabulous evening!

Transeuphoria

Transeuphoria -- an exhibition of gender movers:

Mx Justin Vivian Bond

Sid Branch

Donna Collins

Josie Collins

Chloe Dzubilo

TJ Free

Antony Hegarty

Siobhan Meow

Breyer P‐Orridge

Curated by Chloe Dzubilo and Jeffrey Greene

Umbrella Arts Gallery

317 East 9th Street, Manhattan

(between 1st and 2nd Avenues; directions)

January 20 -- February 13
Reception: Thursday, January 20 (6-8pm)
Outsider Art Fair afterparty: Saturday, February 12 (8-10pm)


“I used to paint at night. Now I paint during the day.” -- Donna Collins


“Ain’t nothing like knowin’ what it feels like…when you slip thru the cracks of society, political niceties, political correctness, health care, housing, employment, wealth, shoe stores, subways, family outings, holidays, systems, systems, Systems. Ain’t nothing like knowing these facts deep in one’s bones. When you’re transsexual. Ain’t nothing like knowing triumph over all of these adversities.” -- Chloe Dzubilo

Contact: Umbrellaarts.com – 212-505-7196

Get responsible with Justin Bond

Justin Bond Will Hold You Responsible
by Aaron Mattocks, Culturebot, October 20, 2010

Running up that hill and hitting that wall

"Running Up That Hill"--Kate Bush's lush pop hit from 1985--was an exquisite muddle. Ah, but then Justin Bond (Kiki of Kiki and Herb) laid claim to it, and then it really became something...something with definition...something with percolating, near-projectile rage. And now dancer Levi Gonzalez has seized upon Kiki's performance, and the resulting solo made the night at Dixon Place which is celebrating its 17th annual HOT! festival of queer culture.

Hard to know exactly what Gonzalez was mining for as he crept around in the dark on his hands and knees with a bright, sometimes pulsating light attached to his forehead--illuminating the shins in the front couches--and a red bike light somewhere to the rear of his crouched body. But he eventually made his way offstage--if you can call DP's living room performance space a stage--to the makeshift dressing room where, thanks to the lifted curtain, we spied on him carefully applying glittery fake eyelashes in an old mirror and listening to the Kate Bush original.

Miriam Wolf (who presented a dance-and-video piece on the Brink program) painstakingly secured Gonzalez to DP's back wall with several long strips of duct tape until he looked like a modern-day St. Sebastian. When Wolf set the last strip in place, he said "Thank you" in such a quiet, sweet voice that it startled some of us into a chuckle. He barely endured his restraints while lipsynching Kiki and Herb's recording. Only his head and face moved.

It doesn't hurt him. (Really?) But he's prepared to make a deal with God to switch places--with whom? God? An angry lover? A person of the opposite sex (which Bush has said is the true meaning of her song)? Freeing himself of the tape, he went on to take the measure of that hill; test the limits of the audience/performer divide, privacy and propriety; adjust antennae-like arms in search of a clear signal. But there ain't no tits on the radio--or, anyway, so say the Scissor Sisters.

There are dancers who dance. And then there are dancers who, no matter what they do, are recognizably and profoundly human; whatever they do pulls us in. Levi Gonzalez is one of these special ones.