Okay. This isn’t directly related to culture or the arts. But once I stopped giggling over the naughty-sounding phrase “stimulus package” I started watching CNN Money. They’re talking consumer confidence and how we get the banks to start lending money, etc. And they were saying how we’re all on this together blah blah blah

Okay but seriously – why isn’t anybody offering to relieve consumer debt???? I mean most people I know spend a big part of their income paying student loans and credit card bills. If the government wants to stimulate consumer spending and at the same time curb people of their bad habits then why aren’t they helping us out? Why not create a non-bankruptcy consumer debt relief program that gives a partial (or total) do-over for individuals to get out from under their crushing debt burdens? The program could include mandatory financial counseling from a federal finance corps (like the WPA) dedicated to educating Americans and helping them remain solvent and productive?

But that is just crazy I guess. Why help regular people when you can just give all our tax money to banks?

Oy vey.

Howdy all,

I’m Jeff Hnilicka, a new contributor to culturebot.  The last name is pronounced with a silent H – it means “rotten fruit” in Czech.

I currently live in Brooklyn, and am Company Manager for JMandle Performance, a multi-disciplinary non-profit organization.  I am also a contributing blogger for the Walker Art Center, where I had worked for 5 years before moving to New York.  I am a founding member of the Revolting Queers and am currently obsessed with creating queer economies – barter systems, community-based artist grants, localist cultural production, and collectivist credit.  Looking forward to connecting.

xxx

ooo

jmh

Maybe that was it!? Maybe that’s what I was doing on Monday, February 2nd?!

One way or another, Little Theatre is always a good time!

Now at the NEW Dixon Place!!! With twice as much betterness!

***************************************************************

Little Theatre, Vol IX, No. 3 – February, 2009

SEXPERT BETSY BIXBY WHEAT

a performance by Kate Valentine

CONGERIES I

music by Matthew Ostrowski

WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME

a performance by Heidi Schreck

MGM GRAND

dance

RAMRODS OF THE ROARING NOUGHTS

a play by Gary Winter, directed by Alec Duffy

with Sarah Petersiel, Matthew Lewis, Arthur Aulisi, B. Brian Argotsinger and Loren Fenton

and live music by Dave Malloy

Monday, February 2, 2009 at 8:00 pm

The NEW Dixon Place

161 Chrystie btw. Delancey & Rivington

(F/V 2nd Ave; R/W Prince; 6 Bleecker, JMZ Bowery)

Tickets $15 @ the door or ;online

$12.00 w/ printout of this email

first come, first served, no reservations

I RSVPed to something for february 2nd. For the life of me I can’t remember what it was. Do you? Remind me!

I have heard great things about this company. And I saw a DVD of their work and really, really liked it. This is, like, the hippest Japanese alternative, experimental, contemporary theater happening. they do this crazy weird fidgeting/gesture movement stuff with what (apparently) is kind of like, heightened colloquial language ala Richard Maxwell. Though it is in Japanese, so that will be a little hard to understand. 

But still – put this on your calendar and check it out!!

chelftisch Theater Company

Five Days in March

U.S. Debut Tour

Written & directed by Toshiki Okada

at Japan Society

333 East 47th Street New York, NY 10017

Phone: 212.832.1155 

Thursday, February 5, 7:30 PM

Friday, February 6, 7:30 PM

Saturday, February 7, 7:30 PM

more info at japansociety.org

chelftisch's Five Days in March © Toru Yokota.

“By juxtaposing global events and personal revelations [Okada] beautifully captures the distance and conflict between them.”  Yomiuri Newspaper

“Comical… excellent… [This scene is] characteristic of the theatrical symbolism in Okada’s work that gives it such strength”. Le Soir

In the days before the U.S. began its war against Iraq in March 2003, two Japanese urban hipsters meet at a post-rock show and get swept up into a one-night stand that turns into five days’ continuous sex. Such is the anticlimactic story in Five Days in March, the prestigious Kishida Kunio Drama Award-winning play by Toshiki Okada. Characterized by seemingly insubstantial narrative accompanied by exaggerated fidgeting gestures-turned-choreography, the ground-breaking and modern works of chelfitsch Theater Company have made them the most talked-about theater company in Japan. The story unfolds through actors who slip in and out of character while casually narrating and playing out scenes. Oblivious to the imminent invasion of Iraq, the slackers obsess over the details of a love affair, perfectly capturing the irony and impotency of Generation Y in Japan today.

In Japanese with English subtitles.

Tickets 

$35/$32 Japan Society members

Buy Tickets Online or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. – Fri. 11 am – 6 pm, Weekends 11 am – 5 pm.

Related Event: 

An Evening with Toshiki Okada & Dan Safer - February 3, 2009

Five Days in March tour dates:

• Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), January 15-17
• PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (Vancouver, BC), January 21-24
• On the Boards (Seattle, WA), January 28-February 1
• Japan Society (New York, NY), February 5-7
• Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH), February 12-14
• Touhill Performing Arts Center, University of Missouri, St. Louis (St. Louis, MO), February 17
• Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL), February 20-22

The seven-city North American tour of chelfitsch Theater Company is organized and produced by Japan Society and is supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan; The Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts JAPAN Program; and The Saison Foundation for the Japan Society’s Japanese Theater NOW initiative.

Man oh man, I want to do this in the U.S.! Culturebot presents Art Star AMERICA! Anyhoo – if you’re in the UK, maybe you’ll be London’s next It-Boy/Girl:

Saatchi’s “Best of British“:

my dear old friend Bazima is hosting her very own reading series!! first one is Wednesday!

The How I Learned… at Happy Ending Reading Series presents

“How I Learned to Steal From the Liquor Cabinet: Stories About Drinking (…Or Not Drinking)”

Featuring:

Mike Albo (The Underminer, Hornito, New York Times’ Critical Shopper)

Erin Bradley (Nerve.com)

Rosie Schaap (This American Life, the forthcoming Drinking with Men)

Hosted by Blaise K.

Wednesday, January 28th at 8pm

Happy Ending

302 Broome Street (between Forsythe & Eldridge)

It’s the hot pink awning that says “HE Health Club” on it. You know the one.

(212) 334-9676

Get directions

THE SERIES

How I Learned… at Happy Ending is a brand new monthly reading series featuring super talented writers, comedians, bloggers, performers and personalities, as chosen by hostess Blaise Kearsley based primarily on their hygiene and their make-out prowess. A complete mash-up of the personal, the biographical, fact, fantasy, and whatever is left in between, How I Learned… offers such educational topics as “How I Learned To Be Super Successful”, “How I Learned About Sex”, “How I Learned That Everyone is Against Me”, “How I Learned My Adolescence Is Over”, “How I Learned We Were Breaking Up”, “How I Learned That It’s Not All My Parents’ Fault (Only About 75%)” and more! How I Learned… at Happy Ending strives to share invaluable life lessons against a dimly-lit, self-indulgent, potentially sexually tense and booze-fueled backdrop. It’s education that works.

from artsjournal newsletter:

“Is the internet killing real critics?” [dailygorilla.com] – they say “yes”, I say “no”. Criticism, real criticism, has been dead since the early 90′s if not before. Now we have reviewers, which is entirely different. The proliferation of mainstream media and ad-revenue driven journalism, not to mention the culture of entertainment and distraction, the dismantling of arts education begun under Reagan and many, many other factors have led to a dearth of actual critics. It is not the internet’s fault or that of bloggers. 

“The Case Against an American Culture Secretary” [wjs.com]. interesting argument about the nature of the arts/artists and the relative merits of a centralized “Culture  Czar”. Still… it would be nice to find some kind of official, strategic way to re-introduce arts and culture into our society, increase education, art appreciation, literacy, etc.  Worth reading, for sure. And certainly will be a point of debate for the new administration.

and from the NY TIMES Sunday Magazine – “What Do Women Want?” – a fascinating and thought-provoking article on female desire and sexuality. I keep wondering, though, how we move past dyadic models for analyzing sexual arousal and behavior. The overarching idea of sexuality as a spectrum (the Kinsey scale) is old – but it seems like we haven’t made a lot of progress in devising new analytical tools for mapping that spectrum. But maybe I’m just not running with the right crowd!

Okay so these guys are good and I think you should go check them out. 

One of the first things I did when I started fixing up IRT was to create and implement the residency program. NONSENSE COMPANY was the first (and only) out-of-state residency I put together. They’re here reprising the show they did last year at FRIGID Festival and not too many people got to see. While they’re here they’re going to build a show that will be world-premiering at PS122 next season.  

This show is a really good show and is still relevant, even with the new president. Also, just stylistically, these guys are really innovative and fun and authentic and DIY- avant-garde “new music” meets experimental minimalist theater with an indie rock aesthetic. They’re here all the way from San Diego so go show them some love and enjoy the show.

THE NONSENSE COMPANY

PRESENTS

GREAT HYMN OF THANKSGIVING/CONVERSATION STORM

By Rick Burkhardt

Directed by Rick Burkhardt & Andy Gricevich

Performed by Ryan Higgins, Andy Gricevich, and Rick Burkhardt

FEBRUARY 3-15 @ IRT

Around a dinner table, three actor/musicians sing, pray, beat forks, deliver the news, and snap between scenes in mid-sentence in GREAT HYMN OF THANKSGIVING a brutal deconstruction of War-on-Terror-speak. In CONVERSATION STORMthree friends from three sides of the political spectrum argue their way through a ticking time bomb scenario, brutalizing their own positions, destroying the lines between real and hypothetical, past and future, day and night. GREAT HYMN OF THANKSGIVING/CONVERSATION STORM was awarded “Best New Play” at the 2007 San Francisco Fringe and “Best of the Fest” at the 2008 NYC FRIGID Fest. CONVERSATION STORM has also been selected for publication in the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2009.

The Nonsense Company performs GREAT HYMN OF THANKSGIVING/CONVERSATION STORM, an award-winning pair of intricate and urgent pieces blurring the boundary between experimental theater and avant-garde music, both written by internationally-known composer and company member Rick Burkhardt. The production will run Feb 3-Feb 7 at 8pm and Feb 11-14 at 8pm with matinee performances on Feb 8 & Feb 15 at 3pm at IRT 154 Christopher Street 3B. Tickets ($15) are available online at www.nonsensecompany.com. All performances will be open to the press.

Continue Reading

I have no idea what this is like but I’m curious as hell. Maybe someone will fly me over to Dubai to check it out.

Art Dubai 

Taking place from March 19 until 21, 2009, the third edition of Art Dubai – one of the world’s most audacious and pioneering contemporary art fairs – will be characterized by an emphasis on quality and integrity.  More than 300 applications were reviewed by an international committee which ultimately selected just over 60 galleries whose individual exhibition proposals will assure an innovative and multi-faceted event, alluring to the seasoned as well as the new collector.  Truly global in outlook and appeal, Art Dubai, located in the beach resort of Madinat Jumeirah, will represents artists from the Middle East, South and Central Asia, the Far East and the West. With the added benefit of the newly opened Museum of Islamic Art and coinciding for the first time with the Sharjah Biennial, Art Dubai is seeking to attract more than 5000 visitors from overseas, doubling the number of international visitors from Art Dubai 2008.  www.artdubai.ae

Sharjah Biennial 9 

Under the Patronage of H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah and under the auspices of Biennial Director, HH Sheika Hoor al Qasimi, overseen by renowned Curators Isabel Carlos and Tarek Abou El Fetouh and led by Artistic Director Jack Persekian, the 9th edition of the Sharjah Biennial, taking place from March 19 until May 16 2009, will transcend central themes and pre-cast frameworks, exhibiting instead a wide range of works selected by open invitation. The Sharjah Biennial has since its inauguration in 1993 served to connect artists, institutions and organisations and to foster artistic dialogue and exchange. It ranks amongst the most established and prominent cultural events in the Middle East.www.sharjahbiennial.org

Abraaj Capital Art Prize 

The Abraaj Capital Art Prize, which at $1 million is one of the most generous art prizes in the world, focuses on promoting and supporting young talent from the MENASA region (Middle East/North Africa/South Asia).  With a flourishing art market in place, time has come to pay attention and tribute to the regional artistic talent and this is ACAP’s main goal. The selection committee of ACAP selected three recipient curator/artist teams out of 100 applications: Cristiana Perrella & Kutluğ Ataman; Carol Solomon & Zoulikha Bouabadellah; and Leyla Fakhr & Nazgol Ansarinia. They are currently working on their projects which will be unveiled during Art Dubai.  They will also become part of the Abraaj Capital corporate collection. www.artdubai.ae

Contemparabia 

Contemparabia is a joint initiative of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH); Art Dubai; the Sharjah Biennial; the Qatar Museums Authority; and the Tourism Development Investment Company Abu Dhabi (TDIC).  Taking place from 15 to 21 March 2009, Contemparabia comprises a cultural and geographical excursion which is designed with one specific aim in mind: to focus regional as well as international attention on the outstanding quality and diversity of cultural projects underway in the Gulf.  The programme includes chosen visits to Doha (the Museum of Islamic Art and special tours); Dubai (the Global Art Forum, Art Dubai, the exhibition of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize finalists’ works on Fort Island and Dubai’s famed gallery district); Sharjah (the Sharjah Biennial 9) and Abu Dhabi (cultural sites and museum projects). www.contemparabia.com