Thinking with/talking back to Lemon's "Scaffold Room"

Above: April Matthis
Below: Okwui Okpokwasili
performers in Ralph Lemon's Scaffold Room at The Kitchen

musings...about how B/black artists choose quilting/sampling where materials--visual, verbal, aural; humble or dear--are many and close to hand. moms mabley and kathy acker; ben webster and david bowie (totally pimped out on soul train and wasn't even embarrassed). when you unroll and stretch this fabric out its seams run thick as scars. does cold, unforgiving space crush art? or does it set it off like jewels on velvet in vitrine? what's up with footwear for women here: white nursing clogs? patent leather red spike heels? or none at all, just barefoot? admitting guests to nearly-barren space where most must stand for two hours...or so they think. actually starting the performance first and then interrupting to pass out folding chairs? what...hostility? inhospitality? chaos? how is performance like a scaffold--for exhibition, for execution? what is B/black womanhood? janis sang baby i know just how you feel in little girl blue? did she? know just how you feel, i mean? did amy know? what if beyoncé--whose teeny screen image one must bow to see--is actually not the vortex of every last person's universe? which universe are we talking? subtle pauses and tilts of the head, matter-of-fact voice...is okpokwasili artificial, a simulacrum, an impersonation of an impersonation folded in upon herself like nested alternate universes? april matthis singing and mumbling to herself in a distracted, helium-ated voice or screaming in different registers for what seems like ten minutes or six centuries...has she found freedom in the body, meeting it on its own terms...freedom shockingly beautiful and also dreadful?

*****

Conceptual artist Ralph Lemon opened Scaffold Room (multimedia installation, readings and performances) at The Kitchen on October 30 in collaboration with Kevin Beasley, Jim Findlay, Paul Hamilton, Malcolm Low, April Matthis, Roderick Murray, Naoko Nagata, Okwui Okpokwasili, Omagbitse Omagbemi, Katherine Profeta, Marina Rosenfeld, Mike Taylor and Philip White. Performances and readings concluded yesterday, November 10, but the installation remains open through Saturday, December 5  in the 2nd floor gallery. Hours are Tuesday-Friday 12-6pm, Saturday 11am-6pm. Admission is free.

For information, click here.

The Kitchen
512 West 19th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Art museums make new space for live performance

When the Art Isn’t on the Walls
Dance Finds a Home in Museums
by Hilarie M. Sheets, The New York Times, January 22, 2015

How about a little less Bill?

Actual listing for Bill Chats

from TimeOut.com, February 13, 2014:

Bill T. Jones sits across noted artists in a series of talks.

Last Sunday evening, I attended Bill Chats: When did the avant-garde become black?--a two-hour panel discussion hosted and moderated by Bill T. Jones at New York Live Arts. Since then, I've largely kept my own counsel as I sorted out thoughts that progressed from ambivalence to outright dismay.

From these "chats" to Jones's ambitious Live Ideas event series--last year, inspired by Oliver Sacks; this time by James Baldwin--it's clear that Jones intends to place his singular mark on the entity now known as New York Live Arts. He's steering it out into broader, deeper, more intellectually heady and political waters and aims to attract a sophisticated audience not necessarily affiliated with contemporary dance. I think good things can come of this for dance as well as for those smart newcomers to the art, although it has the potential to rattle and possibly alienate the more tightly focused folks in our dance community.

I do like this potential encounter and overlapping of worlds; it mirrors my own interests. I'm even more excited about the Baldwin programming for Live Ideas than I was about the Sacks series, but what I saw of Bill Chats worries me.

I'll step out in front of this and just say it: It's not a "chat" if you're hectoring your guests and some of your audience members. It's not a "chat" if you invite the following extraordinary panelists--

Ishmael Houston-Jones
Bebe Miller
Adrienne Edwards
Dianne McIntyre
Charmaine Warren
Ralph Lemon
Brenda Dixon Gottschild

--each of whom is a living archive and then get so caught up in your own button-pushing agenda, your own history, and your own sense of being stereotyped or slighted that you rarely take time to tap the considerable knowledge that your guests possess. That's a Murderer's Row of experience, scholarship and sensibilities just sitting around you, Mr. Jones, hardly utilized.

How useful is this self-declared role of "provocateur"--everything "said with a wink and a 'fuck you' smile," as Jones would have it--in the long run? Curtly dismissing Ralph Lemon's analysis in his opening statement--why? because there wasn't enough "feeling" in it?--was not cool and felt disrespectful. Suddenly putting John Jasperse on the spot, as a white choreographer sitting in the audience, really wasn't cool either. Cryptic shoutouts to the soon-departing Carla Peterson--"I'm doing it right now, Carla!"--sound just ill-tempered. These behaviors don't actually advance discussion of complex issues. They are merely showy and rude.

A chat is also not a performance. A performance is not a chat.

In other words, it is so not about you.

For future Bill Chats, please let the panelists breathe. Give them room to stretch and run. You cannot choreograph their voices, and you should not try.

We show up because we want to hear what they have to say.

Danspace Project to honor the late arts advocate Elizabeth H. Berger

Elizabeth Berger (1960-2013)

Danspace Project's Board of Directors 

invites you to

Elizabeth H. Berger Tribute

Monday, March 10, 7-8pm

Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church

131 East 10th Street at Second Avenue, Manhattan

Please join us at Danspace Project on March 10 at 7pm as we recognize the life of Elizabeth H. Berger (1960-2013) and her dedication to and love of the arts community. The tribute will celebrate her profound impact on the arts in New York City as a board member, advisor and lobbyist for numerous arts organizations, including more than a decade of service as a Danspace Project Board Member from 1990-2002, serving as Board President for eight of those years.

To honor Liz, the Danspace Project Board of Directors is establishing the Elizabeth H. Berger Fund, which will support choreographers and dancers as they create new work. We encourage you to remember Liz by contributing to this new fund.

The evening will feature tributes by family and friends and short performances by Ishmael Houston-Jones, John Kelly, and a screening of THREE (1998) directed by Isaac Julien with choreography by Ralph Lemon and Bebe Miller. A reception will follow.

To RSVP (if you have not already) and request more information, please contact Peggy Cheng at peggy@danspaceproject.org or 212-674-3838.

Bill T. Jones asks "When did the avant-garde become black?"

Bill T. Jones

Bill T. Jones 

and New York Live Arts

invite you to

Bill Chats

When did the avant-garde become black?

at New York Live Arts

Sunday, March 23, 5pm

In this talk, noted panelists including Ralph Lemon, Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Adrienne Edwards, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Diane McIntyre, Bebe Miller and Charmaine Warren will inquire as to when it became acceptable for a person who defines themselves as avant-garde to also say “I’m black.”

Admission: FREE

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan
212-924-0077
(map/directions)

Bill Chats will be live streamed in collaboration with live streaming startup 2ndline.tv.

New arts residencies announced by Park Avenue Armory

Park Avenue Armory Names Artists in Residence
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, April 19, 2013

When dance and the art world dance close

Performance at the Beginning of the 21st Century
by Aaron Mattocks, The Performance Club, October 2, 2012

MAP Fund announces latest grantees

dancer-choreographer Reggie Wilson

Reggie Wilson, Ralph Lemon, koosil-ja, Joanna Haigood, DD Dorvillier, Yasuko Yokoshi, Peggy Shaw, Sharon Bridgforth, and Anthony Braxton are among 41 artists working in performance disciplines who have just been awarded grants--ranging from $10,000 to $45,000--from Creative Capital's MAP Fund.

To learn more about the MAP Fund, click here.

To learn more about this year's grantees and their projects, click here.