Luciana Achugar’s PURO DESEO at the Kitchen is several kinds of awesome and since there’s only one more night to see it, I would urge you to go check it out on Saturday. It is a black mass, an exorcism, a dark and creepy trip through a haunted house of gothic spirits full of ominous apparitions and evil portents. And it is really darned good.

The show opens in utter, complete blackness and we hear an incantation being sung in the distance, slowly it grows louder and higher and is rhymed with plodding footfalls, more like a stomping creature off in the distance. This gives way to a creepy Spanish-looking woman/apparition that flits briefly into view and out again. In another section of the stage a similar looking creepy human shape is sprawled on the floor. Lights flash up and out, illuminating grotesqueries and ghosts.

Eventually the performers reveal themselves – it is like one of them is a possessed monk and the other is acting out the dark visions. And they kind of switch off. Then Luciana doffs her Spanish apparition gown and performs one of the most disturbing solos I’ve seen in a while.

It really was too dark in there to take notes and thus I can’t describe all that happened, but it was amazingly simple – a few phrases (both vocal and physical) repeating, vanishing, returning again. The tolling of a bell. A crescendo of dissonance and noise. Silence, just the pained heaving of a soul in torment.

Rarely do you see performers as focused and intense as luciana and her collaborator Michael Mahalchick. Madeline Best’s lighting is exquisite and precise, the sound design is beautiful and Walter Dundervill’s costumes complete the gothic effect with style.

While the show is billed as dance it is definitely also performance art, a focused ritualistic exploration of haunting and the haunted. Sometimes you see a show and you have to try and follow it – this show actually made me more awake – I was riveted by every detail, hypnotized and waiting to see what was next.

Go check it out!

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In conjunction with the 7^th annual Fusebox Festival, a contemporary art and performance festival that takes place in Austin, TX each April, culturebot.org presents Fusebox Talks, a series of interviews and podcasts with the select artists from the festival. The first podcast is with England’s Action Hero at the Austin Museum of Art; interviewed by Ron Berry with question by Timothy Braun and Savannah McAnally, recording by Michael Bartnett.

You can listen to the podcast here:

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Action Hero makes live art and performance that seeks to use audiences as collaborators and co-conspirators.  They are interested in creating work that links audiences together and unifies them as part of the live event, building a temporary community. Their process has been defined by necessity: a raw aesthetic has become central to our work.  Whilst exploring the epic, we create performance that is intimate, distinctive and invigorating.
Action Hero is a collaboration between artists Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse.  They have been making performance together as Action Hero since 2005, and live and

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In case you didn’t get enough Toshiki Okada at the Play Co.’s ENJOY here is another. Dan Safer and Witness Relocation apply their unique form of dance-theater to Okada’s FIVE DAYS IN MARCH. Also translated by Aya Ogawa, this will prove to be a very different beast than ENJOY. Oh and as further enticement, there’s a discount code for $20 tickets (see below).

WITNESS RELOCATION in
FIVE DAYS IN MARCH by TOSHIKI OKADA
MAY 6 TO 23 at La MaMa ETC
every THURS – SAT @ 7.30pm, SAT 5/22 @ 2.30pm, SUNDAYS 5/9 & 5/23 @ 2.30pm

translated by AYA OGAWA
co-created & performed by HEATHER CHRISTIAN, SEAN DONOVAN, CHRIS GIARMO, MIKE MIKOS, WIL PETRE, KOURTNEY RUTHERFORD, LAURA BERLIN STINGER
directed/ choreographed by DAN SAFER
music by DAVE MALLOY
set/ lights by JAY RYAN
costumes by DEB O
projections by KAZ PHILLIPS
sound by RYAN MAEKER
dramaturg PHILLIP GULLEY
press JONATHAN SLAFF

La Mama’s Annex/ Ellen Stewart Theater
74A East 4th Street, NYC
tickets $25; students/seniors $20
click right here or call 212.475.7710

SPECIAL OFFER FOR WEEK ONE! USE THE CODE “FRIENDS” AND GET TICKETS FOR $20! CLICK HERE.

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Name: Deborah Black
Title/Occupation:  performer
URL: www.deborahblack.net

1. Where did you grow up and how did you end up where you are now?

I grew up in rural, western Pennsylvania, about 1.5 hours southeast of Pittsburgh in the Appalachian Mountains.  My grandfather had a fairly large dairy farm and my mom, dad, sister, and I lived in a farmhouse on his property.  We were surrounded by cornfields.  My mom signed me up for dance classes at the age of five, and because my family had a ‘no quitting’ policy, I stuck with it.  In high school I started traveling to Pittsburgh to train as a ballerina and then attended The Ailey School’s summer programs in New York.  I went to college for one year in Erie, PA, but couldn’t shake my desire to be in New York.  I moved here in 1998, worked briefly for the Anna Sokolow’s Players Project, and then attended and graduated from NYU with a double major in dance and art history in 2002.  I loved studying the Judson Church movement in Deborah Jowitt’s Dance History class and slowly began peeling away the years of classical training.  After meeting and being mentored by Deborah Hay staring in 2006, I began my current research that bridges dance and performance art and improvisation with a concentration on collaboration across disciplines.   This summer I will be training with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company at Skidmore College.

2. Which performance, song, play, movie, painting or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?

Wow… it is hard to narrow this down, but I remember one of my first ‘aha’ art moments was seeing a Mark Rothko retrospective at the Whitney in the fall of 1998 and thinking that I understood, for the first time the, process of an abstract artist.  It was very emotional for me and I think that I’ve sought out a way to make process in my work primary and fulfilling.  Other big influences were Athol Fugard’s Sizwe Banzi Is Dead at BAM in 2003 and Handel’s Alcina at the Paris Opera Ballet in the summer of 2004.  These two works made me fall in love with essential, although abstract, movement direction used to forward the plot and aesthetics of theatre and opera.

3. What skill, talent or attribute do you most wish you had and why?

I wish I was better with technology.  I am very analog and can rarely get my electronics to work efficiently.

4. What do you do to make a living? Describe a normal day.

My day job is working on the wardrobe crews of Broadway shows.  Currently, I am backstage at Wicked, In the Heights, and La Cage aux Folles.  A normal day for me usually includes a rehearsal in the morning (my own work or others), several hours in the theatre sewing or prepping clothes, and then going to see a show or doing administration or research for my own work.

5. Have you ever had to make a choice between work and art? What did you choose, why, and what was the outcome?

I have to thank my supervisors for making my job flexible and because of them, can almost always choose my art.  I remember a big opportunity came up for me to dance for Susan Rethorst in 2007.  I took three or four weeks off of work to do the project for which Susan eventually won a Bessie.  Last fall, I wasn’t quite making the quota set forth by my union to keep my health insurance, so I took a job at White Christmas doing the laundry full-time and still managed to keep my artistic projects alive.  It is a huge balancing act with money and someday I imagine it to be much simpler!

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The Play Company – currently presenting ENJOY at 59E59 – is delighted to announce it has been awarded a three-year, $135,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation designated to support an artistic director’s discretionary fund and cash reserves.   The grant is intended to help The Play Company maintain artistic initiatives and significantly develop the company’s working capital fund.

“I am honored that The Mellon Foundation has selected The Play Company, along with a highly respected group of colleague theatres here in New York, to be recognized and supported at this time,” says Founding Producer Kate Loewald.  “This generous grant helps us enormously, and encourages us to continue to be bold, adventurous and forward-thinking in our artistic work.  It also enables us realize our goal of building a meaningful cash reserve fund, that will help Play Co. maintain financial stability in this turbulent economic environment.  We can continue to take risks on plays and artists we believe in, further our goal of providing artists with resources to generate original work, and explore new ways to connect local audiences with a whole world of new plays.”

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For $30 balcony seats choose $50 ticket and enter code THERMIE for $20 off – limited supply!!!

ELEVATOR REPAIR SERVICE
presents
AMERICAN FICTION: LOVED, BANNED & MYTHOLOGIZED

- Oscar-winner FRANCES MCDORMAND
- indie star LILI TAYLOR
- “SNL’s” Barack Obama FRED ARMISEN
- “The Wire’s” Commissioner Burrell FRANKIE FAISON
- & ERS company members Jim Fletcher, Vin Knight, April Matthis & Susie Sokol

PERFORM dynamic readings from BELOVED and OUTLAWED great American BOOKS

ERS sound designers bring into play the critically acclaimed “MAGNIFICENT sound design” style UNIQUE to ERS to ANIMATE the readings, with anachronistic EFFECTS, movie SOUNDTRACK music & MOODY beds of sound

May 3rd at 8 PM – one night only
$30 Tickets

PROGRAM
Fred Armisen, Jim Fletcher & April Matthis:
Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

Frankie Faison:
Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick; or, The Whale”

Lili Taylor:
Willa Cather’s “O PIoneers!”

Frances McDormand:
Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence”

Vin Knight & Susie Sokol:
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Angel of the Odd”

TICKETS MUST BE BOUGHT IN ADVANCE
www.elevator.org/benefit or 212-352-3101
For $30 balcony seats choose $50 ticket and enter code THERMIE for $20 off – limited supply!!!

Sponsors: A Mouse Bouche, ArtsEmerson, Color Coded LLC, Le Tourment Vert Absinthe, Olivino Wines, Thomas Hooker Fresh Ales and Lagers, Saveur Caterers, Stoli, The Public Theater, and Three Clicks Wines.

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Judith Jamison today announced that her mantle as Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will pass to Robert Battle, a fast-rising choreographer who has created ballets for the Ailey company and Ailey II since 1999 and has served as an artist-in-residence with The Ailey School. Mr. Battle, 37, will be the third person to head the company since its founding by Alvin Ailey in 1958. He will serve side-by-side with Ms. Jamison as Artistic Director Designate from now until July 1, 2011, when she takes Emerita status and he assumes his full responsibilities.

Judith Jamison stated, “We are enormously fortunate in being able to secure the leadership of Robert Battle. Combining an intimate knowledge of the Ailey company with an independent perspective, he is without question the creative force of the future.”

Joan H. Weill, Chairman of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, commented, “Robert’s decade-long relationship with Ailey has given me confidence that he is a great choice to lead the company at this moment. It is exciting to know that his fresh point of view and powerful new ideas will now become part of the ever-enduring, ever-evolving legacy of Alvin Ailey, carrying our spirit forward in the years ahead.”

Bruce Gordon, chairman of the Succession Planning Committee for the Board of Trustees, commented, “We feel certain that our audiences throughout the United States and around the world will embrace the evolution of the Ailey company under Robert Battle’s direction. They will know their profound emotional bond with this company is being not just honored but renewed.”

According to Executive Director Sharon Gersten Luckman, “Alvin Ailey and Judith Jamison built a world-renowned institution around a singular artistic vision. Under Robert Battle’s artistic leadership, we can be sure that the vision will remain strong and true. I look forward to working with him to keep this institution flourishing for years to come.

Accepting his appointment as Artistic Director Designate, Robert Battle stated, “I don’t know whether to call this the proudest moment of my life or the most humbling. With the help of Judith Jamison and the great, great dancers in this company, I hope to be worthy of this tremendous responsibility that I’ve been given, and to honor it in the only way Alvin Ailey would have accepted: by keeping it new, alive and moving forward.”

“In seeking a new artistic leader for the company, it was important to find someone who has his own vision, his own experience,” Judith Jamison explained. “Robert has his own company and is a maverick in his choreography. He’s edgy and forward-thinking, very talented and savvy—a lovely, intelligent person who in many ways reminds me of Alvin. He also has a worldview and is capable of taking this company in new directions, while at the same time understanding our traditions. Choosing Robert Battle is the giant leap I want to take to ensure that this company stays vibrant in the future.”

# # #

About Robert Battle
Honored by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2005 as one of the “Masters of African-American Choreography,” Robert Battle was born in Miami, Florida, in 1974 and was educated at the New World School of the Arts and The Juilliard School. Upon his graduation from Juilliard in 1994, he joined the David Parsons company as a dancer, and in 1998 he began setting his own work on the company, which now has performed his choreography nationally and internationally. Upon leaving Parsons in 2001, Robert Battle founded his own group, Battleworks Dance Company, which made its premiere in 2002 at the World Dance Alliance’s Global Assembly in Düsseldorf, Germany, where it was the U.S. representative to the festival. Battleworks has subsequently performed extensively at venues including the Joyce Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, American Dance Festival and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

Robert Battle began his association with Ailey in 1999, when he was commissioned to create Mood Indigo for the popular young Ailey II company under the leadership of its long-time Artistic Director Sylvia Waters. He first worked with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2003 when he created Juba for the company and choreographed side-by-side with Judith Jamison and Rennie Harris for Love Stories, which had its world premiere in 2004. The most recent work by Mr. Battle to enter the company’s repertoire is In/Side, performed during the December 2009 New York season to popular and critical acclaim. Mr. Battle has also conducted workshops for The Ailey School as an artist-in-residence in 2006 and 2008.

Other companies that have commissioned new works from Mr. Battle or restaged his ballets include Hubbard Street Repertory Ensemble, River North Dance Company, Koresh Dance Company, Introdans, PARADIGM, Jeanne Ruddy Dance, and Ballet Memphis, among others.

In addition to his activities as a company leader and choreographer, Robert Battle regularly conducts residencies at universities throughout the United States and teaches master classes in New York and abroad. Among the honors he has received is the prestigious Statue award of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA, which he accepted in 2007

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Name:  Reg Flowers
Title/Occupation:  Theater Artist/Educator, creator of the the theater series Off the Hook; Riot Act, and Red Hook Theater Project
URL:  www.falconworks.com

1. Where did you grow up and how did you end up where you are now?

Grow up is such a relative term.  I’m sure this questions gets lots of
creative answers. In some ways, intellectually, emotionally and
psychologically, for example, I feel I haven’t grown up.  I’m aware of
the enormous amount of growth I have yet to experience.  I was raised
from childhood in Philadelphia.  For as long as I can remember I’ve
been directing people.  I was the kid who would marshal the other kids
into games of make believe that were usually based on whatever film was popular at the time.

2. Which performance, song, play, movie, painting or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?

Argh! I don’t know about biggest or influence or art even.  My mother
probably had the biggest influence,  other family members after that.
My environment has shaped me as a person/artist mostly, I think. I’ve really only ever tried to emulate a couple of artists:  One was George Barrick, my partner of three years (more counting the time before our first breakup), who happened to be a visual artist,  and the second was my mentor, Walter Dallas, who happened to be a director. My tastes as an artist were certainly shaped by these two.  Probably Camille Paglia as well.  My love for art in a the social context comes from having her as a teacher and from reading her books.

3. What skill, talent or attribute do you most wish you had and why?

I wish I had more patience and the ability to see into the future.
Wait, not the second thing — seeing all the bad stuff (any bad stuff
that I knew would happen) — would be a real bummer.  I’d like more
patience and maybe a do-over of my thirties.

4. What do you do to make a living? Describe a normal day.

Hah! I love the clarification.  I would not say I make a living doing
anything.  I am simply very lucky to have things fall into my lap in
time to pay the bills each month.  My normal day:  I wake up very
early–that’s pretty consistent.  I start thinking about what I need to
do to make progress (the towards is constantly shifting).  I try to do
something nice for myself these days, like meditating or going for a
light run or a long walk.  I start planning (the what is always
changing).  I spend a lot of time thinking up new ways to do theater
with the various populations with which I work.  I’m constantly in search of more effective ways to spark creativity in the people around me.

5. Have you ever had to make a choice between work and art? What did you choose, why, and what was the outcome?

No.

——–

Reg’s Falconworks Red Hook Theater Project will be performing May 24 – 30.

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After serving as the Festival Director for the 2009 HOT! Festival, a six week, multi-site festival of queer performance and culture, Earl Dax presents Queer Conscience. Part of the “New Voices in Performance” series at the Center for Performance Research (CPR) in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Queer Conscience includes performance, discussions, screenings and other special events that feature artists, activists, and academics whose experiments in queer identity serve as springboards to broader social consciousness.

read the rest of the write-up over at Contemporary Performance.

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Midafternoon goof-off, Cheech and Chong’s stoner-metal classic, “Earache My Eye”:

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