Performing Arts

You may remember New York-based artist Mika Tajima and her noise-band moniker The New Humans from their performance at the Walker Grand Re-Opening party. They performed their piece Grass Grows Forever in Every Possible Direction in the space age Skyline Room (the eyeball of the Ice Cube Monster). Blessed be an installation that results in leftover beers. We had Budweiser for weeks.

Mika Tajima/New Humans are featured artists in this year’s Whitney Biennial. Beyond the Whitney, Tajima is currently exhibiting in tandem at The Kitchen (NYC) and COMA (Berlin). I recently had the pleasure of meeting with the artist at her performance/installation The Double at The Kitchen.

The piece explores multiplicity, boundaries, translations. As viewers enter the gallery, they are confronted with a partition running the diagonal-length of the room, built from panels inspired by Herman Miller’s cubicle-zygote Action Office invented by Robert Probst. Along the panels are Xeroxed images of an artist painting landscapes on the Iraq wall, Tajima’s own extrapolations on Action Office designs, gigantic mirrors, comically poetic press releases filled with the Utopian dreams that inspired Action Office, and promo posters from the Mick Jaggar cult film Performance.

Peeking through the perforations of angled panels, you sense the other side is operating with a similar vocabulary. Turning the bend, the audience sees that Tajima has crafted each panel as a double-sided artwork. With this system, the artist cleverly criticizes Probst’s design: a Cubicle Problem that due to over-privatization, people often create double-work. But this obstruction is more than a comment on office workers making the same PowerPoint - Tajima intends this incision into the space to highlight how “an architecture of isolation is a violent gesture”.

Just past the wall, a swinging lampshade casts dramatic light beams on two mirrors… another homage to Performance (as evidenced by the film’s trailer).

On my initial walk-thru of the installation, I thought, “How am I gonna make this relevant to the Performing Arts blog?” At first glance, Tajima is blending elements of interior design, film history, installation, architecture, screenprinting, sculpture… kinda a little bit of everything except performance. This is a calculated move by Tajima, who continually agitates expectations, employing a widely varied methodology which she calls her “rubric of practice.” Whether opening up for Motorhead in Norway, or exhibiting at the premier American biennial, Tajima instigates audiences to question what they plan on experiencing.

She is well aware of audience expectations of a performative artist having a show at The Kitchen, a vanguard of New York’s performance scene. As we walked around the installation, she’d highlight different components of the installation (the lampshade, the poster, the rotating panels) and define each one as a performance. In an effort to combat the notion that performance should entertain or even that something should “happen”, she creates a space that hints that something could happen, or did happen. As we spent more time in the gallery, more of these moments of performance began to emerge. A large stage-like space framed by the wall and the lampshade, myself posing in the mirror, sneaking into a nook between the gallery wall and a panel to look at an image. Tajima says she’s exploring the Artaud-ian notion of audience as performer, wherein viewers experience the artwork around them.

Tajima also disrupts expectations at a macro level, in that her projects often stretch beyond traditional modes of duration or location. This desire to create a “continual monument” - a concept inspired by the radical Italian 60’s design collective Superstudio - manifests throughout her body of work. For instance The Double is one project occurring in both NYC and Berlin concurrently, assembled by similar components with slight variations. Also, the video piece in the Biennial extends from Disassociated, her installation/performance at Elizabeth Dee Gallery.

Tajima’s goals and tactics are reminiscent of recent Walker artists Jerome Bel or Tino Sehgal. What I love about this work is how it forces organizations and audiences to ask core questions - Why have we divided artwork into defined genres? Why do people pay for a cultural experience, and how/why do we market these experiences? How have our expectations for aesthetic experiences been shaped and manipulated?

Long story short - the next time Motorhead comes to town, be sure to check them out. Their opening band is full of surprises.

all images are courtesy the artist and Elizabeth Dee, New York.

I went to the Cedar Cultural Center Monday to shoot video of a rehearsal for Festival of Lies, from Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula and his ensemble, Les Studios Kabako. Instead of rehearsing, Linyekula talked to several local guest artists, performing in his work Saturday, about the history and process leading to this piece. Performances are November 1-3 at the Cedar.

And here’s a piece of video of the company in performance.

I have been an intern in the Performing Arts department at the Walker since the beginning of July this year. In this time I have had the chance to see some wonderful performances, meet artists, attend Walker parties, and learn more about where I belong in the arts and cultural world. But I think my favorite part of being here is where I get to sit. My desk (which I share with a fellow intern) is placed in a spot where you have to pass if you need to get to certain departments in a quick fashion. I say quick because I would say at least 75% of the people who pass my desk are cruising by at full speed darting around the corner off to who knows where. I, being the number one fan of people watching, love every minute of it.

I get to see interns running by with what I am sure are very important documents in hand (I am one of them), department heads flying by to their next presentation or meeting, colleagues doing the walk and talk very much like “The West Wing”, and at least twice a day people just barely crashing into one another as they pass like two ships in the night or in this case like two race cars. I have become used to this frantic movement and now find myself transfixed by my computer screen staring at Excel spreadsheets or shooting off an email not even noticing the passers by. Every once and a while some one will stop at my desk to chat (or perhaps take a breath) but for the most part it is go, go, go around this hip and fast paced office. Sitting in this spot one might only think folks around here have somewhere they need to be and they need to get there fast! I have come to realize that although I certainly do not know everyone around here I do know that these people are dedicated to and driven by their work and I feel like such a lucky duck that I get to see them in action every Thursday and Friday.

Alicia Anstead(for Inside Arts magazine): Let’s say you can’t use the word dance, how would you describe what you do for a living?
Bill T. Jones: I am a scientist in the area of that place where feeling, thought and action meet. My primary computer, my primary instrument is the body, mine and other people’s.
(in interview after accepting a Tony award for his choreography in Spring Awakening)

There has been so much activity in the local dance community lately so here are some quick highlights and upcoming events:

- Congratulations to Bessie Award Recipients: On September 17, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, and The Joyce Theater with the 2007 Bessies Committee, presented the Twenty-Third Annual New York Dance and Performance Awards (a.k.a. THE BESSIES) for exceptional achievements of the 2006-2007 season. Award were given to two Walker-commissioned and premiered productions for:
- Minneapolis dancer, Karen Sherman, for her performance in Morgan Thorson’s Faker at P.S. 122
- Designers, Jim Findlay and Jeff Sugg, for Cynthia Hopkins’ Must Don’t Whip ‘Um at St. Ann’s Warehouse
Awards were also given to artists previously commissioned by the Walker such as Bill T. Jones and Sarah Michelson for their latest works.

- Most Ambitious Work to Date: Two years ago local choreographer, Mathew Janczewski embarked on a great and ambitious project commissioned by the Walker Art Center. An amazing round-table of artists came together to help him conceive and develop his new work, UGLY. As a dancer, Mathew has long been obsessed with the notion of body image and as a choreographer he has looked at society and the various façades we put on. You are invited to come and peek behind-the-scenes at how he breaks down those façades, strips down the ego and gets to the essence of who we are as individuals and who we are as a people.

- Choreographers’ Evening All Lined Up: This year’s CE showcase curated by Emily Johnson, runs November 24 at 7 and 9:30 pm and features short works by Olive Bieringa, Jaime Carrera, Joanna Furnans, Cara Krippner, Mad King Thomas, Kaleena Miller and Ricci Milan, Pam Plagge, Sally Rousse, Kenna Sarge, Susan Scalf and Dylan Skybrook, Chris Schlichting, Anna Marie Shogren, Terri Yellowhammer, and The Greater Twin Cities Tableau Society.

- Momentum 08: New Dance Works: Just announced!
Four new commissions, by local promising artists Eddie Oroyan, Chris Schlichting, Maia Maiden with Ellena Schoop, and Anna Marie Shogren, are germinating and will be co-presented by the Walker Art Center and the Southern Theater, with generous support from the Jerome Foundation, July 17-19 & 24-26, 2008. Save the dates!

Just before the Gobbers flew off to Riga to do their next show, they left their mark backstage… Our Events and Media Production staff are going to continue the tradition ask the artists sign the wall as a momento.

Friday the Gobbers were on their way to Riga, Latvia to do a show called Room Service (Help Me Make It Through The Night)

Click to read more: http://www.gobsquad.com/current.php

Many will remember that in March the Walker’s film department screened Melody Gilbert’s film Urban Explorers– a documentary about a mischievous group of people probing the deteriorating history of urban environments. Gilbert isn’t the only one interested citywide reconnaissance missions. The themes of urban landscape exploration and documentation will be back at the Walker with this year’s Performing Arts season opener: Super Night Shot by the UK/Germany’s Gob Squad.

The Gob Squad group will hit the street an hour before the performance, armed with video cameras. While they’re out, we, the audience will be tipping back a drink in 20.21’s restaurant lounge. They’ll split up into four pairs, each group with a performer and a videographer. They’ll scour Minneapolis’ corners, and return to a hero’s welcome (us… partying in at 20.21…. armed with Silly String and confetti) with an hour’s worth of videotaped urban exploration. Then the performance itself will be a four-channel live mixing of the previous hour’s Minneapolitan exploration. It’ll be an amazing way to get a new perspective on your home town. PLUS, you get a free drink at 20.21 with your ticket!

• Reveille sounds: The Twin Cities newspaper scene has taken a series of body blows of late, with buyouts and layoffs at the dailies, the shuttering of the altweekly Pulse of the Twin Cities, and what seems to be a mass exodus of writers from the remaining weekly City Pages. So the birth of Reveille, where many of the departed from other publications have ended up, is welcome news. The online music magazine includes staffers like Jim Walsh (formerly of City Pages); Steve McPherson, Tom Hallet, and Rob van Alstyne (Pulse); current HowWasTheShow.com editor Andrea Myers, and Kyle Matteson, who runs ArcadeFire.net, the Wilco fansite Via Chicago, and MoreCowbell.net.

• Metronomy meets Mario: Metronomy, playing Summer Music & Movies in Loring Park on August 6, just played the G! Festival in the Faroe Islands. The review? “[T]hey impress brilliantly. Combining an esoteric, Super Mario-influenced blend of dance, techno and electro with choreographed stage moves, shirts with light bulbs on them and keyboards a plenty, the band recreates a sweaty club atmosphere despite the sun shining as brightly at nine in the evening as it was five hours earlier.” Perfect for the park…

• Blue Note bonanza: Cribbed, co-opted, and celebrated, the graphic design of Blue Note Records album covers from the ’50s and ’60s remains, in my mind, some of the best design around. The Japanese site Vintage Vanguard chronicles hundreds of examples of famous and rare jazz covers from the era, including Donald Byrd Free Form, the un-PC Lou Donaldson album “Good Gracious,” The Three Sounds’ It Just Got to Be (pictured above), and the classic color scheme of for Andrew Hill’s 1964 release Judgment!

• Rider Raves: Dutch theater collective Kassys, at the Walker for Out There 2006, has apparently honored us with a Dressing Room of the Year honor. A few salted nuts and bags of trail mix go a long way. In other news on backstage schwag, The Smoking Gun posts a hilarious, at times non sequitur, concert rider for Iggy & The Stooges. Among the requests, apparently penned by roadie Jos Grain: two heavy duty floor-mounted fans (”So that I can wear a scarf and pretend to be in a Bon Jovi video”) and two tom-toms “with mounting” (”And if you can’t bring the mounting to us, we’ll have to send a bloke called Mohammed to the mounting”). [Thanks, Emily.]

• Summer Bands Announced: Alas, Iggy isn’t headlining the 31st annual Summer Music & Movies series, the Walker’s free gig in Loring Park, but the just-released lineup is pretty incredible. International bands are coming including, from Belize, Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective, and UK electropop phenom Metronomy. Locals include The Plastic Constellations, Black Blondie (”Picked to Click” by City Pages; pictured, top left), The Knotwells, and Rob Skoro. The films are a selection of director Douglas Sirk’s best; the fun starts July 16 and runs every Monday through August 20. (Palacio and Co. play June 28 at BAM in Brooklyn. The New York Times calls their music “danceable exhilaration… To an outsider [it] can sound like Andean music sent to the Caribbean seaside.”)

• Praising Mekka: The Walker-commissioned Facing Mekka, Rennie Harris’ hip-hop theater piece and anchor performance at the 2003 Hip Hop Moves festival, just premiered in Harris’ hometown of Philadelphia. The Inquirer called the piece “an ambitious, abundantly alive production.” The rave goes on: “You can’t get bigger sound than Mekka’s mix of live voice, DJ, percussion and cello (perhaps too loud for some), more vital dancing than that of its cadre of phenomenal performers, or a more thought-provoking layering of image and action.” Not a bad homecoming present for Harris on the 15th anniversary of his company, Puremovement.

• Hopkins hailed: The Walker-commissioned Must Don’t Whip ‘Um, Cynthia Hopkin’s newest performance piece and a highlight of this year’s Out There festival, opened at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York to acclaim. The New York Times, describing Hopkins’ voice as “delicate and emotionally forceful -- part Natalie Merchant, part Madeline Peyroux,” hails the music-theater work as “a triumph of disciplined thinking, narrative fluidity and musical accomplishment.” (After the Walker show, Variety took a stab at describing Hopkins’ pipes: “Hopkins is gifted with an instrument of uncanny tone, almost angelic, and her phrasing at times clips her lyrics with acidic tinges that bring to mind Billie Holiday’s combination of aching passion and brains.”) See MDWU at St. Ann’s through Februrary 4.

• Attacking the bearded lady: The Riot Group, from San Francisco, is racking up praise for this year’s final Out There piece, Pugilist Specialist (tonight and Saturday night only) which follows US military specialists as they plan an assassination attempt on an Arab despot referred to only as the “bearded lady.” Psychologically gripping yet hilarious, this piece, well-timed for an age of Abu Ghraib and the Global War on Terror, is “visceral and thoroughly engaging, even as it raises disturbing questions” (Star Tribune).

• Free culture: For you, an mp3 of Seu Jorge performing “Rebel Rebel” and others at the sleepwalkers opening at MoMA, plus I Met the Walrus, a very short film animating a 1969 interview on war and peace conducted by 14-year-old Jerry Levitan. For more free mp3s and news on independent music, visit Spacelab.

Welcome to our first edition of Backstage, a periodic offering of sneak peeks, news and notes on music, theater, and performance contributed by members of the Walker Performing Arts department.

• About that subtitle: If the traditional-sounding title throws you, let this review of this weekend’s performances at the Walker of Young Jean Lee’s Songs of the Dragon Flying to Heaven (”a show about white people in love”) be your guide. Ranked #10 on New York magazine’s “Best in Theater 2006,” the blurb reads: “Considering it begins with a close-up video of the playwright being slapped in the face--repeatedly, for several minutes, hard enough to draw tears--it says something for Young Jean Lee that she still manages to save her play's weirdest, funniest stroke for near the end. In unison, four Asian-American actresses deliver a speech in the author's voice that rampages through race and gender sensitivities, mocking patriarchal white men, hypocritical white women, angry minorities, and Lee herself. ‘People think of me as this empowered Asian female, but really I'm just a fucking white guy,’ they announce.”

• The live arts: In an interview, Performing Arts curator Phillip Bither tells mnartists.org how Out There performers are selected each year and why Americans are so reluctant to produce experimental performance: “I think it has something to do with the fact that the live arts have always been tied to commercial interests in this country. There has been very little distinction between entertainment and live art or art that runs in real time. This is not to say that experimental theatre can't be entertaining or wildly inventive.”

• SXSW bands named: Austinist lists all 240 confirmed bands for this year’s South By Southwest festival, from AM to Zach Galifianakis. The amps turn on March 9.

• Jazz blues: The jazz world lost two greats recently: Alice Coltrane, who in the 40 years since her husband’s death has made music with his band, passed on. A child prodigy who trained in classical music, Coltrane was known for injecting Eastern sounds and harp music into jazz; listen to this amazing NPR story, rebroadcast on the occasion of her death last week at age 69. Jazz saxophonist Michael Brecker succumbed to leukemia brought on by myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare form of bone cancer that attacked his bone marrow. He played on more than 900 records and won 11 Grammys. Susan Brecker, who wrote an open letter before her husband’s death seeking bone marrow donors, asks friends to commemorate her husband by donating to The Marrow Foundation’s “Time is of the Essence” Fund or lobbying for stem-cell research. Brecker was 57. Our condolences to the Brecker and Coltrane families.