Performa Videos

The fact that Lenin was a participating dadaist in Zurich ? though in disguise ? served as a pretext for New York based artist Rainer Ganahl to rewrite the original Ubu play as Ubulenin. Ganahl added some recent regulators over ubuesque investment schemes.

In 375 BC, the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite force composed entirely of homosexual lovers, annihilated the Spartan army, a brigade three times their size, at Teygra. 2352 years later, party planner Robert Isabell triumphed as well, becoming an instant sensation when he filled Studio 54 with four tons of glitter.

A 90-minute relay race of sorts, featuring 25-35 wrtirers and artists who will take turns reading aloud short texts related to the theme of speed while running on three treadmills positioned side-by-side. Presented by Cabinet Magazine

For Performa 09 Omer Fast will combine the familiar childhood game of ?Broken Telephone? with the confessional talk show format. In a theatrical setting, invited guests will recount personal memories with direct links to current global events and the projection of power and freedom. As each guest begins speaking, an actor appears alongside, as an observer, listening to the guest?s account for the first time. When the guest is finished, the actor retells what he or she has just heard, while another actor listens to the account and subsequently narrates his or her own rendition of the story. This sequence repeats several times over the course of the evening, allowing the story to spontaneously transform from individual memory to communal recitation, from version to version into its own fluid text.

In conjunction with his solo show at Rental, Brendan Fowler presents a five hour durational performance that functions as much as a live soundtrack to the work as it does a unique set of gestures unto itself or as it does a lens onto the audience?s actual experience of taking on the act of attending.

In Maria Hassabi?s ?Solo Show? a multitude of familiar representations of the female body drawn from art history, pop culture, and everyday life are dissolved into the physicality of contemporary dance. As these images are manipulated in time and space, their initial meanings are disrupted. ?SoloShow? is part of a new diptych work by Hassabi that began with ?Solo,? presented by FIAF?s Crossing the Line Festival and Performance Space 122 in October 2009, and features contributions by many of Hassabi?s longtime collaborators, including sound design by James Lo, set design by visual artist Scott Lyall and Maria Hassabi, and lighting design by Joe Levasseur. ?SoloShow? will be performed alternately by Maria Hassabi and dancer, Hristoula Harakas.

Recently, Dutch artist Guido van der Werve filmed a scene at the Marshall Chess Club in which he plays a game of chess with grandmaster Leonid Yudasin. For this film that explores the parallels between chess and piano, van der Werve, a member of the Marshall Chess Club himself, and a trained composer of classical music, built a chess table that functions as a mechanical piano. The piano will be the centerpiece for live performance for Performa09, performing the composition that he wrote for his particular film. The composition is written for chess, 9 string players, of two first violins, two second violins, two violas, two cellos and one bass, and will be performed by himself and the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra at the legendary chess club frequented by Marcel Duchamp and Bobby Fischer.