The Kitchen Events

Susie Ibarra/Yusef Komunyakaa
Shangri La (work-in-progress)
April 15 & 16 (Fri & Sat) 8pm $10
Music by Susie Ibarra
Libretto by Yusef Komunyakaa
Choreographed and staged by Mariah Maloney
Conducted by Tania Leon

Set in modern-day Bangkok, this new chamber ensemble piece featuring voice, strings, percussion, and electronics portrays Paradise and Hell amidst the elusive underworld of international trade, the Thai sex industry, and the country’s related AIDS epidemic. Created by the groundbreaking composer/percussionist, Susie Ibarra, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Yusef Komunyakaa, Shangri-La’ story is told through the voices of prostitutes, the foreign business men who become their lovers, and a “metaphysical detective” investigating an embezzlement scheme. A true fusion of cultural influences, the work integrates jazz, improvisation, American blues, Thai classical and folk music, and experimental techniques to capture the contradictions of a place of great beauty and horror.

The work is partially commissioned by The Kitchen.
This work-in-progress presentation is made possible with the generous support from Cristina Enriquez-Bocobo and Cody J. Smith.

Alter Ego

April 19th (Tue) 7pm $5
Curated by Lauren Cornell and Henriette Huldisch
This evening of short film and video explores how fictional identities are used to engage the world in ways that might otherwise be prohibited, or considered inappropriate or absurd. The program features the work of both established and emerging artists who deploy alternate personas to diverse ends, from political intervention to the fulfillment of intimate fantasy. Artists in the program include Tara Matek, Bjørn Melhus, Paper Rad, and Mike Smith, among others.

Matthew Buckingham/Joachim Koester
Sandra of the Tuliphouse or How to Live in a Free State
April 26-June 18, 2005
Opening: April 26 (Tue) 6-8pm;
Exhibition Hours: Tuesdays-Saturdays, 12-6
Curated by Debra Singer

Past and present life in the anarchistic “free city” of Christiania in Copenhagen, Denmark, is the subject of this five-channel video installation by Matthew Buckingham and Joachim Koester. In 1971 Danish housing activists broke through the fences of an abandoned seventeenth-century military base, founding what is now one of the largest anarchistic communities in the world. The work investigates the contrasting power relations and vivid social forces of this environment to unravel the assumptions and arbitrary events that make up its history. Each of the projections follows a separate thematic line through the daily excursions of the fictional protagonist Sandra, an outsider living in Christiania. Idiosyncratic facts and historical data are interwoven with the unpredictable and subjective flow of memories, offering multiple perspectives on this community’s originating utopian ideals and the consequences of “living outside the law” as a form of protest.

Dean Moss/Laylah Ali
figures on a field
May 5-7 (Thu-Sat) & May 12-14 (Thu-Sat) 8pm $15
Panel Discussion: May 7 (Sat) 4pm Free
Conceived and directed by Dean Moss in collaboration with Laylah Ali
Performers: Kacie Chang, Pedro Jimenez, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Dean Moss, Okwui Okpokwasili, David Thomson
Curated by Christina Yang

Laylah Ali’s provocative paintings featuring her invented “Greenhead” characters are the inspiration for this unique performance collaboration between Bessie-awarded choreographer Dean Moss and the 2004 Whitney Biennial artist. Through disquieting scenes enacted by a cast of six, figures on a field addresses issues of power related to athletic, religious, and military contexts, while also exploring the dynamic between patterns of cultural consumption and formations of identity.
Major support has been provided by the Multi-Arts Production Fund, a subsidiary of The Rockefeller Foundation. figures on a field is co-commissioned by The Kitchen, with additional support from the Individual Artists Fund of the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. This project has received initial workshop and presentation support from The Kitchen MIST Residency program and the MassMoca Residency Program.
Dance programs at The Kitchen are made possible with sponsorship support from Altria Group, Inc. and with generous grants from The Harkness Foundation for Dance and the Mertz Gilmore Foundation.