Franklin Furnace’s Goings On
June 7, 2005
CONTENTS:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Joni Mabe, FF Alumn, announces 6th annual Elvis Presley festival, Georgia, August 6
2. James Scruggs, FF Alumn, at HERE Arts Center, starting June 6
3. Sabrina Jones, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Jennifer Miller, FF Alumns, at St. Ann’s, June 10-19
4. Karen Finley, FF Alumn, now blogging on the Huffington Post
5. Paul Granjon, Andre Stitt, FF Alumns, represents Wales at Venice Biennale
6. Vito Acconci, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, FF Alumns, Galerie Sho, Tokyo, thru June 30
7. Erika Yeomans, FF Alumn, short films screening, London, June-July
8. Matthew Geller, FF Alumn, at Wave Hill, Bronx, NY, June 11- August 28
9. Raul Zamudio, FF Alumn, at Artist Network, NY, opening June 10
10. Doug Skinner, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, June 8, and in “Fate” magazine
11. Pamela Sneed, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, June 17, 18, and at Joe’s Pub, July 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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1. Joni Mabe, FF Alumn, announces 6th annual Elvis Presley festival, Georgia, August 6
The Loudermilk Boarding House Museum will host the 6th Annual Big E Festival & ETA Competition on August 6, 2005. Special performance by Damon Hendrix, 2004 Big E Winner, and Ghost Radio will play Elvis tunes throughout the day for your dancing pleasure. Awards will be presented to First through Fifth Place winners. There will also be a Youth Division category with First Place Award presented. Audience gets to vote in the People’s Choice Award benefiting John B. Gesbocker Animal Shelter of Habersham County. Museum is located at 271 Foreacre Street, Cornelia, Georgia 30531. Phone # 706-778-2001.
Elvis’s favorite foods will be available: Bone Daddy’s BAR-B-QUE, Boiled Peanuts, Grandma’s Home-made Ice Cream, P-nut Butter & Banana Sandwiches, moon pies, snowballs, soft pretzels and more…. Cadillac Club of Atlanta will present Cadillac Row in front of the museum. Tours of Everything Elvis will be given. Door Prizes, Elvis Trivia, Raffles, and 2 port-a-potties this year. Museum opens at 10 AM. ETA Competition starts at 11:00am and ends when Elvis leaves the building. Bring the whole Family and lawn chairs!!!
For more info call:
706-778-4654 – Habersham Chamber of Commerce
Directions from Atlanta: Take 85 North to 985 to 365. Get off at the Clarkesville, Helen, Demorest exit. Go right on 441 Business, Go thru 2 red lights to the center of Cornelia. Cross Railroad Tracks. Take second left onto Foreacre St. Go 2 blocks. Museum is on left. Park across the street in Church parking lot.
Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn Express are located right when you exit off 365 onto 441 business.
Days Inn is located on Level Grove Road.
Both motels are about 2.4 miles from museum.
Hampton Inn 706-778-0040
Days Inn – 706-778-7700
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2. James Scruggs, FF Alumn, at HERE Arts Center, starting June 6
Back by popular demand, HERE Arts Center & Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre’s Digital Performance Institute are thrilled to announce a special 4-week return engagement of James Scruggs’s powerful solo show Disposable Men, directed by HERE Co-founder and Executive Director Kristin Marting.
I cordially invite you to see the acclaimed production Talkin’ Broadway calls “incredibly visceral and refreshingly in your face… If anyone is tired of theater that only offers mindless escape to its viewers, then I highly recommend James Scruggs’s stunning multimedia performance piece.” Disposable Men starts June 6th and runs Thursday–Sunday @ 8:30 PM, with additional performances on Sunday @ 5:00 PM, and Monday @ 8:30 PM. Originally recommended by NY Times Arts & Leisure Guide, this run features new material! If you missed the show in February, now is your chance to see the production that made The New York Sun rave, performer James Scruggs “embodies and then explodes the icons of ‘disposable’ blackness.”
In a multi-media environment, Disposable Men pairs old-fashioned storytelling with innovative new technology in a solo work that demonstrates the role of the popular media in classifying African American men as “disposable.” With a dose of sharp wit, Scruggs gives life to a variety of characters and circumstances: from a waiter at a theme restaurant that features customized lynchings to a modern-day minstrel who performs at kids’ parties and more. Scruggs’s vantage point reveals a fate shared by Hollywood monsters and African American men in that both are often feared, killed and ultimately disposed of – sometimes in the most imaginative ways. For more information, visit the production website at http://www.disposablemen.org.
For this richly interactive environment, creator/performer James Scruggs uses a robotic video projector that makes roving images of King Kong and the men of Tuskeegee leap off the screen and fill the stage. In development since May of 2000, segments of Disposable Men have been shown at the AM Foundation in DUMBO, Brooklyn Arts Exchange and at the 2004 CULTUREMART Festival at HERE, where Scruggs is a Resident Artist. Creator/performer James Scruggs has designed video for Division 13’s version of Ionesco’s Journeys Among the Dead and Kristin Marting’s Orpheus (both at HERE). He was also one of seven writers selected for the Naked Angels Writers’ Lab, where his ten-minute play Thuggish was performed (February 2003).
Director Kristin Marting has constructed 17 works for the stage, including seven dance-theatre pieces, five adaptations of novels and five classic plays. Most recently at HERE, she directed Orpheus, a 21st-century version of the popular Greek myth as an alt-rock musical developed collaboratively with writer Stephanie Fleischmann and composer Nikos Brisco and the design team of Juliet Chia, David Morris, Liz Bourgeois and Scruggs. She is also co-founder and Executive Director of HERE. The rest of the creative team for Disposable Men includes Hal Eagar (Technology Director), Philip Pares (Composer), Patrice Busnel (Costumes), and Chris Brown (Lighting).
In conjunction with this run, HERE will be offering perspectives from community activists and thinkers on the frontlines of racial and social perceptions. Through the HEREsay Thursday Talkback Series starting June 9, audiences can discover how these individuals have responded to Disposable Men and participate in a dialogue with them and with the artist, James Scruggs.
June 9: Activists Kathie Cheng and Juanita Young from the October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Interviewed by Niegel Smith, Assistant Director, Disposable Men.
June 16: Diallo Shabazz, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Interviewed by Carl Skutsch, professor of history at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
Please let me know if I can set aside tickets for you or your artistic staff to see Disposable Men by emailing me at this address or calling me at 212.647.0202 x305.
Best regards,
Rachel Ford
Associate Producer
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3. Sabrina Jones, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Jennifer Miller, FF Alumns, at St. Ann’s, June 10-19
ARTS AT ST. ANN’S PRESENTS Great Small Works
7th INTERNATIONAL TOY THEATER FESTIVAL
andTemporary Toy Theater Museum
JUNE 10 – 19, 2005
THE WHITE PAJAMAS
A hand-painted ethnographic motion picture with vivid commentary, performed live!
With MAYER KIRSHENBLATT and JENNY ROMAINE
St. Ann ’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street , DUMBO, Brooklyn, NYC
Thu 6/16 at 7:30pm; Fri 6/17 at 10pm; Sun 6/19 at 7:30 pm
http://www.greatsmallworks.org/ttf_2005.html (718-254-8779)
Paintings by Mayer Kirshenblatt
Direction, dramaturgy by Jenny Romaine
Design: Jenny Romaine with Trudi Cohen
Story and text excerpts from They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland before the Holocaust by Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
Additional writing: Jenny Romaine
Soundtrack: Kenny Wollesen
Lest future generations know more about how East European Jews died than how they lived, Mayer has made it his mission to remember the world of his childhood and to record everything he can recall about his town, the people who lived there, and daily life. The paintings describe through composition, choice of subject matter and color, the life of an early 20th century Polish/Yiddish town. They are sensual, visual documents of a way of life. They are not “remnants” of a world destroyed, but “vibrants”. Romaine chose to partner with Kirshenblatt precisely because, in his hands, this information was captured in LIVING color. Romaine and Kirshenblatt were commissioned to create the WHITE PAJAMAS by the French Ministry of Culture and the Festival International de Papiertheatre, Mourmelon, France with support from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.
Performed by John Bell, Trudi Cohen, Mayer Kirshenblatt, Jennifer Miller, Jenny Romaine, Ayesha Sampson, and Kenny Wollesen. Puppet and stage construction: Jenny Romaine, Trudi Cohen, Vanessa Bergonzoli, John Bell, Mark Sussman, Alessandra Nichols, Marianna Ridgell, Gabe Levine, Hermine Ortega, and Patricia Llosa. Production associate: Ariella Wurtzel
Mayer Kirshenblatt was born in Poland in 1916 and left when he was 17 years old. With no more than seven years of schooling, he taught himself to paint at the age of 75. During the last fifteen years, he has produced more than 250 paintings and many drawings. His work is evidence of his insatiable curiosity, passion for close observation of daily life, extraordinary memory, and a creativity that blossomed late in life. Every painting tells a story and these stories, together with the paintings, are the basis for a book, They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland before the Holocaust, and exhibition. His work has been widely exhibited in solo and group shows organized by the Smithsonian Institution and the Aird Gallery, among others. A highlight of his career as an artist has been the chance to collaborate with Jennifer Romaine on transforming his paintings and stories into toy theater.
Jenny Romaine is a founding member of Great Small Works and music
directs/performs in Jennifer Miller’s CIRCUS AMOK. She has committed over 2 decades to the cultivation of new Yiddish culture, theater and community based performance art. She was music archivist at the YIVO Institute for 13 years and draws on diverse Yiddish primary source material to create new art with contemporary meaning. Her work rewards thought, refuses sentimentality, and delivers the energy of a rock show. In the Yiddish world she has directed community based spectacles with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, The Ashkenaz Festival of New Yiddish Culture, Yiddishkayt LA, KlezKamp (Youth Theater Workshop), The Workmen’s Circle (Purim Shpiln), Klezkanada, and others. Romaine performs and designs for the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater’s hit family show, “Kids and Yiddish” and directed the ” Memoirs of Glikl of Hameln” with Frank London and Adrienne Cooper. She is currently working on the BETTY BOOP SUITE with Trumpet Princess Susan Watts, and animator Mornography. She was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts artists fellowship in 1998, and a New Play Commission in Jewish Theater from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture in 2003.
Special thanks to Barbara-Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Max Gimblett, Isaac Bell, Elaine Silver,Doris Kirshenblatt, All the members of GSW!, Vanessa Bergonzoli, the cast, Alain Lecouc, Adrienne Cooper, Frank London, Robert Poulter, Marsha Gildin, Judith Helfand, SoCalled, The Romaines, the 2004 Toronto snow posse: David Buchbinder and Rulla Said, Marilyn Lerner, Noam Berlin, Doron Berlin, and Daniel Berlin, and everyone who helped in the unheated studio!
Gratitude to our funders: Frances Stern and Benjamin Feldman, the Mattsons, and the David Gildin Foundation.
Friday June 10th, 5-7pm
St. Ann’s Warehouse
38 Water St., DUMBO, Brooklyn
Transit options: F to York St. or
A,C to High St. or 2,3 to Clark
Dear friends,
Once again I’m thrilled to be in the “TEMPORARY TOY THEATER MUSEUM” exhibit as part of Great Small Works’ 7th International Toy Theater Festival.
My “3-Way Holy City Gate” (paper mosaic & barbed wire) is not like anything I’ve made before. Perhaps it was that Middle Eastern sun on my head… I’d love to see you at the opening reception – It’s kid-friendly and FREE.
Check out their performance schedule:
www.greatsmallworks.org
The exhibit & festival run thru June 19th.
Sabrina
Drop in any time: www.sabrinaland.com
or check this out: www.directoryofillustration.com/SabrinaJones
…or call ahead: 718.369.1607
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4. Karen Finley, FF Alumn, now blogging on the Huffington Post
Karen Finley, FF Alumn, is blogging on the Huffington Post…
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5. Paul Granjon, Andre Stitt, FF Alumns, represents Wales at Venice Biennale
51st Venice Biennale
Welsh Performance Art
in
REACTION
10th & 11th June 2005
Eddie Ladd 21.30 – 22.00
Marc Rees 19.30 – 20.00
André Stitt 17.00 – 19.00
Welsh performance as part of ‘Reaction’, a Comune di Venezia, Nuova Icona, Plug & Fnv Collateral Event during the opening of the Venice Biennale
Campo Santo Stefano, Venezia (June 10)
Plazzale Candlani, Mestre (June 11)
and
Paul Granjon, FF Alumn, is participating in Somewhere Else, at the Ex-Birreria, Giudecca, Venice, opening on June 9 and continuing through November 6, 2005.
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6. Vito Acconci, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, FF Alumns, Galerie Sho, Tokyo, thru June 30
SEX….in ART
Thru JUNE 30, 2005
ANDY WARHOL
THOMAS RUFF
BETTY TOMPKINS
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE
HELMUT NEWTON
VITO ACCONCI
GALERIE SHO
B1F SANSHO BLD., 3-2-9 NIHONBASHI CHUO-KU TOKYO 103-0027 JAPAN
TEL. 03-3275-1008 FAX 03-3275-9309 EMAIL gsho@m1.interq.or.jp
WEEKDAYS 11:00-19:00/SATURDAYS 11:00-17:00/CLOSED ON SUNDAYS
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7. Erika Yeomans, FF Alumn, short films screening, London, June-July
ERIKA YEOMANS’
Short films screen in London June and July 2005
CHUBBY BUDDY
(2003, 13 mins, Super 8)
Short Wave Film, 150 Brick Lane, June 12th, Sunday 4 till 7pm.
Shortwave @ 93 Feet East
www.shortwavefilms.co.uk
TAKE 291, June 23rd, Thursday, 7:30pm, ?2
291 Gallery, 291 Hackney Road, London
www.291gallery.com
In Search of Bas Jan’s Miraculous
(1997, 40 mins. Mixed Media)
TAKE 291, 291 Gallery, July 2005,
291 Gallery, 291 Hackney Road, London
www.291gallery.com
For more info: www.fortherestofyournaturallifeproductions.com
For The Rest of Your
Natural Life Productions
383 First Ave. Suite 7
NY, NY 10010
www.fortherestofyournaturallifeproductions.com
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8. Matthew Geller, FF Alumn, at Wave Hill, Bronx, NY, June 11- August 28
Meteorologic Phenomena
Curator: Jennifer McGregor / Assistant Curator: Erica Strongin
Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery, Grounds and Visitor Center
June 11-August 28, 2005 Exhibition Reception: June 12, 1–4pm
Margaret Cogswell, John Dooley, Spencer Finch, Matthew Geller, Sandy Gellis, Stefan Hagen, Lisa Hein & Bob Seng, Cassandra James, Michael Krondl, Rima Mardoyan-Smyth, Andrea Polli, Kevin Todd and Lisa Young
Using Glyndor Gallery and the grounds, Meteorologic Phenomena explores a variety of artistic responses to the weather, that elemental force that shapes all human relationships to nature. Atmospheric conditions influence ecological and biological progress as well cultural and technological development. The artists consider the weather as a psychological condition, source of scientific information, and aesthetic inspiration.
Outdoor projects include Matthew Geller’s Whether or not you love me. Geller augments, with fog and rubber, the existing and perhaps never quite completed terrace adjacent to the lower lawn, creating a romance and mayhem often associated with the weather.
RECEPTION June 12, 1-4pm. Free Roundtrip Bus departs at 12:30 from 54th St & Third Ave in Manhattan. 718.549.3200 x248.
GLYNDOR GALLERY 10am to 4:30pm, Tues-Sun. Open until 8pm on June-July Wednesdays.
WAVE HILL ADMISSION $4; $2/Seniors, Students; FREE Members + under 6; FREE Tues; FREE 9am-noon Sat
Wave Hill A public garden & cultural center
675 West 252nd Street Bronx, New York 10471
718.549.3200
www.wavehill.org
Accessible by car, MTA Express Bus, Metro-North Rail, the ‘A’ subway with Bx7 bus, #1/9 subway with Bx7/10 buses.
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9. Raul Zamudio, FF Alumn, at Artist Network, NY, opening June 10
Daniel Gottin: Minimal Improvisation
curated by Raul Zamudio.
the:artist:network, 424 Broadway 6th floor, NY, NY.
opening reception: Friday June 10th, 6pm – 8pm.
exhibition dates: June 11th – June 25th, 2005.
gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday 11-5pm, Saturday 11- 5pm.
‘Minimal Improvisation’ is the first solo show of Swiss residency artist Daniel Gottin to be held at the:artist:network. Daniel is in residence at the:artist:network through the Iaab program, as part of the Christoph Merian Foundation, Basel, Switzerland. His conceptually intuitive, often site specific work is built on improvisation, using industrial materials to make an intervention in a space, allowing architectural aspects of the space to play an active part in the work. His minimalist work explores the notion that the interplay between the space which houses a work and the intervention can play a vital role in the creation and perception of a work. ‘Minimal Improvisation’ will combine an exhibition housed within the walls of the:artist:network gallery with a permanent site specific piece to be installed in the building’s stairwell, entitled ‘Network 28’. A myriad of lines created from teal and black adhesive tape will intersect throughout the six floors of the building to make a web of sorts, reinventing the space by creating a sense of depth on flat surfaces.
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10. Doug Skinner, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, June 8, and in “Fate” magazine
Doug Skinner will be performing his new and old songs with Alison Davy (soprano) and David Gold (viola). Among the offerings will be a fresh batch of rounds and the stirring anthem “We Have No Life Beyond Our Daily Life.” It’s the Dixon Place Veteran Series, at the Marquee (356 Bowery, between Great Jones and E. 4th), June 8th at 7:30 pm. More info can be found at www.dixonplace.org.
A Skinner article on Richard Shaver, pulp fictioneer and visionary painter, is this month’s cover story in “Fate” magazine. The article is posted at the website, www.fatemag.com. If you buy the magazine, though, you can see more pictures.
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11. Pamela Sneed, FF Alumn, at Dixon Place, June 17, 18, and at Joe’s Pub, July 3
Dear Friends,
On Friday and Saturday June 17th and 18th, I will be presenting excerpts of my new performance work America Ain’t Ready at Dixon Place/258 Bowery@8pm. Tickets are
$12. Then, on Sunday July 3rd at 7pm in a special show in the irony of independence day, I will present America Ain’t Ready in its near entirety at Joe’s/Pub at the Public Theater at 7pm. Tickets are $20. America Ain’t Ready is an epic monologue and tour de force by Pamela Sneed/part satire/part drama/addressing the American Healthcare system, gay and lesbian rights, the Bush regime, 9/11 and the perils of being an artist on a personal and political front. I hope you can attend one or all of these shows. I’m so excited and proud of this work. I look forward to your support. Hope to get a big producer too!!! Please spread the word.
Pamela
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~~end~~
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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Brooklyn NY 11217-1506 U.S.A.
Tel: 718-398-7255
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Martha Wilson, Founding Director
Michael Katchen, Senior Archivist
Harley Spiller, Administrator
Dolores Zorreguieta, Program Coordinator
