October 14, 2009

Dear Friend,

Dear Friend, We've had a busy opening to the fall - Avant-Garde-Arama, Maria Hassabi, John Jahnke and Hotel Savant, Cupola Bobber and 31 Down. It's been a whirlwind and now it's 2am and I find myself in a foreign land and pooped.

AT PS122
I hope you've seen some of what we've had so far. If not - fear not. Temporary Distortion and Morgan Thorson (our next two offerings) will both be outstanding. We are organizing a couple of special events around the two shows: a conversation between Morgan Thorson, Jay Wegman (our dear friend at Abrons Arts Center), John Merz (NYU Episcopal Chaplain) and Michael De Dora (Center of Inquiry) that is free and open to anyone on Tuesday October 20th at 7PM. And "opening night parties" before and after Thorson and Temporary Distortion on Thursday October 29th. I have included the information on these events down below. Otherwise we are looking forward to our November collaborations with PERFORMA. We are co-presenting three artists with them this year: Maria Hassabi, RabihMroue and Ragnar Kjartansson.

BEYOND PS122
I am now at the Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires - an annual theatre event of international and, more importantly, Argentine work. I arrived this morning from Sarasota Florida where I'd seen the inaugural Ringling Festival - a collaboration between Florida's FSU and Ringling Museum and the Barishnikov Arts Center. Ringling showcased some familiar friends: New York's Elevator Repair Service showed their work to date on The Sun Also Rises (it will be as good as The Sound and The Fury - and perhaps as good as Gatz- premiering in Edinburgh next August, then NYC in 2011), as well as DeganitShemy (PS122 in 2008), Eight from Ella Hickson (PS122 this past January.) and MeowMeow (also one of ours from 2008!). It was amazing and remarkable to be jolted out of my downtown universe into the very upscale Florida and see completely sold out houses of incredible performance that had grown up or premiered at PS122. There is a heartening profound global ripple effect from the work done on our stages, which we can forget wading through the mass of shows in New York.

Then on to Houston, past the flu shot booth(!) and into Buenos Aires. This city oozes theatre in a way that is incredible. Ever since we presented the Buenos Aires in Translation program (BAiT) in the Fall of 2006, I've been eager to do more with work from down here and it is incredible. Somehow we have to turn our audience's gaze south to Latin America, where in Santiago, in Buenos Aires, in Mexico City and beyond there are performance and theatre cultures that are thrilling and important seven nights a week. The festival here is directed by Ruben Szumacher and he has taken a challenging tack of presenting many artists who have yet to hit the touring circuit -i.e. unknowns. In our BAiT program we premiered Veronese, Leon, Lola Arias and Spregelburg, but sadly I won't get to see new work by them because they are big names here, too big for this year's festival.

Festival Central - the temporary offices, the festival club and meeting spaces are in an emptied out Harrods department store. Not a pirated Harrods, but the former Buenos Aires outpost of the real London spot - it's surreal and incredibly vast. Imagine emptying Macy's and then putting a theatre festival in it - performance spaces, a bar, sofas and galleries all lined up behind signs for "Peluqueria de Hombre" (Men's Hairdresser) and stunning elevators and wood paneling. Theatres run on a program of a different show each night of the week - Mondays is x, Tuesdays y, Wednesdays z, and so on. In prior festivals,I saw some actors in five different plays in a given week. A show could run for a year every Tuesday at 8pm. The work here is built small, fast and brilliant. Very tightly written, often quite abstract work performed by actors who take realism / naturalism to a new and strange place.

So far, I've seen four shows (14 hours after I arrived from Florida), each in a tiny venue behind a lovely wine and beer bar - all completely full. Then a massive asado dinner with Jean Graham-Jones, translator of the BAiT plays, and an Argentinean theatre expert, FrieLeyssen (formerly of the Kunsten Festival das Arts and now Theater de Welt), and Stephanie Karp from the Vienna Festochen, at which we began some serious plot hatching to send NYC work to these events - either under a PS122 banner or on their own. Sometimes these trips are more valuable for the extended contact with colleagues than for the shows - and my job here is as cheerleader and agent for the New York work that has passed across our often more humble East Village stages.

There are two and a half more nights, 8 more shows (I leave for the airport with bags from the last), some rehearsals and many more meetings. Then back to New York.

COMING UP IN NYC: a few tips given with best intent and zero guarantees....
Neal Medlyn has been a wonder at PS in work by Adrienne Truscott, in his Prince album last year, and bringing Kanye West to tears this summer in 'Why Wont You Let Me Be Great'. He is at DTW from October 22, and should not be missed. We tried to present Emmanuelle voDinh who is upcoming at Danspace Project, but missed it by a hair. She's an amazing French / Vietnamese creator. Taylor Mac (Ethyl Eichelberger award winner with his first full evening show in 2006) is getting ready for a season at HERE from October 29th and this is also the final week for Big Dance Theatre at the Kitchen which I hope to see when I get back from Argentina - along with seeing rehearsals for LeeSaar and Radiohole before they land their 2009-2010 shows with us.

Hope to see you either at PS122 or around town...

Vallejo

Vallejo Gantner,
Artistic Director Buenos Aires, October 15, 2009

INFO ABOUT OUR OCTOBER EVENTS:

October 20th we are hosting our first Conversation with Culture @ 7pm - location still a secret - just email artsdevelopment@ps122.org or morgan@ps122.org to reserve and they will let you know where to go but it is free and open to the public and the participants include:

JAY WEGMAN, Director of the Abrons Art Center and and former Canon for Liturgy and the Arts at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
MORGAN THORSON, choreographer: HEAVEN premiering at Performance Space 122 on October 25th
JOHN MERZ, Diocese of New York Episcopal Chaplain to NYU
MICHAEL DE DORA JR., Executive Director, Center for Inquiry-New York City

October 29th

600 - 730PM: Cocktails at TELEPHONE BAR (2nd Ave & 9th Str) with PS122 Season Artists from this year and last. 730 - 900PM: Your choice of show"

Temporary Distortion (Theatre/Cinema)
In Americana Kamikaze, Temporary Distortion returns to PS122 with one of their signature theatre-cinema hybrids in a box - this time delving into the worlds of Japanese ghost stories and "J-Horror". (7:30 curtain, Downstairs Theater)
OR
Morgan Thorson & Low (Dance/Music)
In Heaven, Morgan Thorson teams with the sublime slow-core band LOW in pursuit of ecstatic perfection in a real-time performance ritual. (8:00 curtain, Upstairs Theater)

900 - late: After party with artists, cast, PS122 staff and crew.