Goings On | 2/11/2003

Franklin Furnace’s Goings On
February 11, 2003

CONTENTS:
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1. Lenora Champagne, FF Alumn, at Patio Bar, February 19, 8 pm.
2. Sue De Beer, FF Alumn, at Postmasters Gallery, opening Feb. 15th, 6-8 pm
3. NYU’s Fales Library presents Writers Respond to Laura Bush’s Cancellation of White House Poetry Symposium, February 12, 1-2 pm.
4. Andre Stitt, FF Alumn, gets a kick out of curry and presents Bedford Project, Feb. 14.
5. Nora York, FF Alumn, at BRIC, Feb. 13th, 7:30
6. Billy X. Curmano, FF Alumn, in NYC Feb. 22nd, and in Minnesota thru March 30.
7. Ken Butler, FF Alumn, at Collective Unconscious, Feb. 21-22, 2003
8. Donna Henes, FF Alumn, presents Queen of My Self, April 5, 2003
9. Carolee Schneemann, FF Alumn, booksigning at DIA, Feb. 14, 6-8 pm
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1. Lenora Champagne, FF Alumn, at Patio Bar, February 19, 8 pm.

I’ll be reading from a new work-in-progress, Mother’s Little Helper, on Wednesday, February 19, at 8:00 p.m., at Patio Bar, 31 Second Avenue (between 1st and 2nd Streets). It’s through Dixon Place–I’m the only person on the bill, and the piece is about an hour long. Tickets are $7.00 or TDF. Would love to see you there.
Lenora Champagne

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2. Sue De Beer, FF Alumn, at Postmasters Gallery, opening Feb. 15th, 6-8 pm

Sue De Beer, FF Alumn, presents “Hans und Grete” at Postmasters Gallery, February 15-March 15, 2003. Reception, Saturday, February 15, 6-8 pm.
Postmasters
459 W. 19th St.
NYC 10011
212-727-3323
212-229-2829
postmasters@thing.net
www.postmastersart.com

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3. NYU’s Fales Library presents Writers Respond to Laura Bush’s Cancellation of White House Poetry Symposium, February 12, 1-2 pm.

The NYU Graduate Program in Creative Writing and The Fales Library present

Poetry and The American Voice: Writers Respond to Laura Bush’s
Cancellation of the White House Poetry Symposium

with
Paul Auster
Nicholas Christopher
E. L. Doctorow
Melissa Hammerle
Marie Howe
Galway Kinnell
Charlotte Mandel
Sharon Olds
Katha Pollitt
Marie Ponsot
Tom Sleigh
Irini Spanidou
Jean Valentine
Chuck Wachtel
and students from the NYU Graduate Program in Creative Writing

February 12, 2003, 1- 2 p.m.
Fales Library, Bobst Library, 3rd Floor, 70 Washington Square South
This Reading is open to the public. Free Admission.

This reading has been organized in response to Laura Bush’s decision to cancel the symposium “Poetry and The American Voice” scheduled to take place at the White House on February 12th at 1 p.m. because several writers planned to read anti-war poems. This reading is a forum that allows us to celebrate the arts in a time of national conflict and crisis and to emphasize the vital place of the arts in the context of significant national and international events.

Marvin J. Taylor
Director, Fales Library and Special Collections
New York University
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
ph. 212.998.2596
fax. 212.995.4070

“Keep watch over absent meaning.”
–Maurice Blanchot

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4. Andre Stitt, FF Alumn, gets a kick out of curry and presents Bedford Project, Feb. 14.

Andre Stitt, Artist, gets a kick out of curry – please see article at website below
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/england/2731841.stm
A performance artist wants to question the behaviour of rowdy youths – by booting a takeaway dish through Bedford, England

And

The Bedford Project…I Love You by André Stitt
Friday 14 February 2003, 1pm
Town Centre Shopping Precinct & Harpur Centre, Bedford.

The Bedford Project is an innovative new body of work by internationally acclaimed artist André Stitt. Over a period of four months, Stitt is conducting a series of nine performance akshun interventions. These will be recorded in a suite of video and photographic works that will be shown in an exhibition at BCA Gallery in autumn 2003.

The artist’s next engagement will be on Friday 14 February 2003 in Bedford’s Town Centre Shopping Precinct and Harpur Centre at 1.00pm. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, André Stitt proposes to roam the town centre with a placard upon which is written a proclamation of love. Badges with the words, “…I love you” will also be distributed to passers by.

There is a widespread view that we live in unsettling times full of apocalyptic messages. Certainly nothing lasts forever. Whether it’s a mountain, a molehill, a distant star or the chocolate bar that has been lodged in the back seat of your parent’s car since 1967, all things eventually fade and are no more. As impermanent beings ourselves, we know and ungracefully accept this fact. One day, the end will come for our friends, our family, our neighbours, our tax auditors, and even for ourselves. Yes, even the World itself will one day stop spinning on its familiar axis and its property value on the open market will plummet. With all this uncertainty surrounding us, in the words of the artist, “…the most radical and subversive thing (he) can say to you right now is; I Love You.”

This symbolic gesture will be recorded for posterity and form the basis of the exhibition at BCA Gallery. Concerned with ideas of empathy, I Love You celebrates and explores one of the most fundamental and complex of human emotions.

Stitt is identified with a strain of performance, more often seen in Europe, which relates to visual and live art but which is often placed within the realm of conventional theatre. His performances – identified by the artist as akshuns – focus on contentious socio-political issues: oppression, isolation, personal – societal dysfunction and the experiences of alienation. They are a vehicle with which the artist explores, examines and describes notions of freedom and redemption, and through which he discusses aspects of other international religions/spiritual cultures

This project represents Stitt’s first major one-person intervention in the eastern region and has received firm financial backing from East England Arts. Julian Campbell, Head of Operations (EEA) wrote, “…we view this initiative as an exceptional, regionally significant project to bring high calibre Live Art work to Bedford.”

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1958 and living in London since 1980, André Stitt is considered one of the UK’s foremost art performance creators. He has worked as a Live Artist since 1976, producing hundreds of unique performances at major galleries, festivals, alternative venues and public spaces throughout the world.
Stitt’s uncompromising style has been variously described as:-

“…enigmatic and corruptive… unmissable…”
Time Out (London),

“Stitt demonstrates the potential of live art. He pulls away the mask of pretension and false artistic glory to explore a world of fear, confession, wonder and rare beauty. His work is raw, limitless, powerful and most of all alive.”
High Performance, USA
For further information please contact Hedj Ijyaho-Dollman, Gallery Manager or Sarah Blomfield, Director on 01234 273580

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5. Nora York, FF Alumn, at BRIC, Feb. 13th, 7:30 pm

S.O.S. is an unusual and innovative music, dance, theater, aerial arts and puppetry variety show presented in a cabaret-like setting. Curated by Michelle Moskowitz. AT BRIC Studio A program of Brooklyn Information & Culture 57 Rockwell Place (next to the BAM Harvey theater) Brooklyn ( directions below )
Time: 7:30pm
Ticket Info: $10/ $8 students. For reservations call 718-855-7882 x53 or make your reservations online now.

Sink or Swim (S.O.S.):
Nora York with Charlie Giordano and Steve Tarshis
(singing : Light of Love in these dark times — “what ?!?!” no! really!?!? )
Aerial performers Fly-by-Night Dance Theater
Choreographer Shannon Hummel/CORA
Magicians Delaney & Dave

SUBWAY:
2,3,4 or 5 to Nevins st. ( walk 1 block east along to Fulton and Rockwell Pl. M,N,R,Q to Dekalb Ave. (exit at Flatbush & DeKalb, walk 2 blks. east along DeKalb to Rockwell PL., turn right)

PRESS
“ingenious …radical…. extravagant talent.”
–(Steve Futterman) The New Yorker —
“Nora York has brought a tough- minded sensibility to cabaret”
— (John Pareles) New York TImes —
“York sure-handedly delivers her intelligent recombinant music… Like k.d. lang and Laurie Anderson… York presents a kind of postmodern cabaret. The buzz about York and her band is
growing. They recast old stories in strikingly thoughtful ways and, like love, make them new…” (Gene Santoro) The New York Daily News —
“There is no one in jazz quite like the New York based vocalist… knock[ing] the socks off the Newport Jazz Festival audience last summer…” (Bob Young ) Boston Herald —
[one of the] more original musicians on the current scene. –(David Hajdu) New York Review of Books–

“The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.” Paul Robeson CHOOSE PEACE www.norayork.com

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6. Billy X. Curmano, FF Alumn, in NYC Feb. 22nd, and in Minnesota thru March 30.

Billy X. Curmano is represented with paintings in the “Amorous Art Exhibition” at the Rourke Art Gallery Museum in Moorhead, MN through March 30th.

Billy X. Curmano is screening his video short, “XARTCH Surveillance”, at the College Art Association Annual Conference. It will be included in a Public Art Panel between 2:30 and 5:00 p.m. at the New York City Hilton on February 22nd. The short video documents his collaboration with University of North Carolina Chapel Hill students in the construction, surveillance and vandalism of sculptures and the apprehension and rehabilitation of art vandals. Their “Art Watch” model could be one answer to the problem of art vandalism in other communities.

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7. Ken Butler, FF Alumn, at Collective Unconscious, Feb. 21-22, 2003

Ken Butler’s Voices of Anxious Objects with the fabulous Dina Emerson, voice

The artist-musician re-unites with the indescribable vocalist as they perform mesmerizing world textures and driving melodic gypsy grooves with passion and purpose on an amazing arsenal of amplified hybrid string instruments made from household objects and tools. Duchampian Dada meets Hybrid Hindu Hendrix.

Also on the bill – “Festival of Stillness” San Francisco composer, writer, performer & recording artist Merlin Coleman, voice & cello, with Dan Cantrell, accordion & saw!

AN EVENING OF STORIES, SONGS AND OBJECTS
Friday & Saturday, February 21st & 22nd 10pm $12
Collective Unconscious
145 Ludlow St.
212-254-5277
weird.org

Dina Emerson, vocalist & performer, returns to NY after 2 years in Las Vegas as lead singer with Cirque du Soleil (“O” at Bellagio and “Mystere” at Treasure Island). During her 13 years in New York, Dina became well known as a prime interpreter of New Music, New Opera and Extended Vocal Techniques. Since 1990 she has been a member of the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble, recording & touring the world; other artists with whom Dina has worked include Tan Dun (Academy Award for Best Score for a Motion Picture, 2002), Komar & Melamid, Nam Jun Paik, David Soldier and John Kelly.

Ken Butler is an artist and musician whose Hybrid musical instruments, collage drawings, performances, and installations explore the interaction and transformation of common and uncommon objects, altered images, sounds and silence. His works have been featured in numerous exhibitions and performances throughout the USA, Canada, and Europe including The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Exit Art, Thread Waxing Space, The Kitchen, The Brooklyn Museum, Lincoln Center and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as well as in South America, Thailand, and Japan.

Merlin Coleman is a San Francisco based composer, writer, performer and recording artist. Her duo with Dan Cantrell on accordion and musical saw, titled “Festival of Stillness,” will play a haunting set of emotionally surreal songs and spoken text which melds genres and sonic qualities into a dramatic and environmental performance of unexplainable stories. Influences include early European music, Eastern European folk, Indonesian Gamelan, Tuvan throat singing, surrealist texts, and vocal experimentation. Merlin is in New York to fulfill a residency at ENGINE 27 in Tribeca.

“Merlin Coleman presents a devastating confection of lilting vocals, somber strings, unruly language…reminiscent of Meredith Monk crossed with Flannery O’ Connor on mushroom tea”. -S.F. WEEKLY

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8. Donna Henes, FF Alumn, presents Queen of My Self, April 5, 2003

The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Mid Life
April 5, 2003
at Mama Donna’s Tea Garden & Healing Haven
Park Slope Brooklyn
11AM-5PM
$75.
Info: 718-857-2247

The second will be in 2 parts:
Part 1: The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Mid Life
Part 2: Crowning the Queen
at the Womongathering weekend in Pennsylvania
June 12-15
info: www.womongathering.com

Plan for these events early.
Send your check today in order to reserve your space.

I look very forward to sharing this powerful and inspiring work with all of you beautiful, majestic, mature, wise and worldly women.
Long Live the Queens! May we rule in a peaceful world!
xxMama Donna

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9. Carolee Schneemann, FF Alumn, booksigning at DIA, Feb. 14, 6-8 pm

Valentine’s Day Video Presentation and Book Signing by Carolee Schneemann
Presented by the Dia Bookshop and EAI
Dia Bookshop
548 West 22nd St., New York, NY
Friday, February 14, 2003
6-8pm, Admission free

Groundbreaking performance and multidisciplinary artist Carolee Schneemann will present new, recent, and classic video works at the Dia Bookshop. She will introduce excerpts from her recent installation “More Wrong Things” (2000), and preview a new in-progress installation work, “Devour” (2003). She will also present a number of her performance works on video, including her once again timely investigations of war: “Viet Flakes” (1965), “Snows” (1967), and “Illinois Central Transposed” (1968). She will also screen “Water Light/Water Needle (Lake Mah Wah)” (1966), a complex physical work set in a beautiful spring landscape, and the visceral and dynamic Body Collage (1967). Schneemann will also be available to sign her recent publication, “Carolee Schneemann: Essays, Interviews, Projects” (2002).

Electronic Arts Intermix
535 West 22nd Street, Fifth Fl
New York, NY 10011
(212) 337-0680
(212) 337-0679 fax
http://www.eai.org
info@eai.org

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Goings On are compiled weekly by Harley Spiller

Click http://www.franklinfurnace.org/goings_on.html
to visit ‘This Month’s World Wide Events’.
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