Scanning The Landscape

At the invitation of artistic directors Mark Russell and Meiyin Wang, I curated and produced discourse-based public programs at The Public Theater’s annual Under The Radar Festival from 2012 – 2016.

Programs include:

2016

Assembly Required: New Media, New Dramaturgies
Many contemporary theater makers use multiple technologies in their studio practice. Editing sound and video in real time; programming light, sound and video cues, cutting, pasting and interpolating found and original texts, choreography and even data visualization are part of the theater-making process and ever-expanding toolkit. Pioneering director Marianne Weems and renowned scholar Shannon Jackson’s new book on the history of The Builders Association will serve as the starting point for a panel discussion with Lars Jan, Andrew Schneider, André M. Zachery and the authors.

Performing Identities
As increasing interconnectedness and demographic changes continue to reshape the cultural landscape, our sense of identity is also challenged and changing. Join UTR artists Dorothée Munyaneza (France/Rwanda), Ahamefule J. Oluo (USA) Tanya Tagaq (Canada), Alok Vaid-Menon and Janani Balasubramanian (USA), Martha Redbone (USA) in a conversation on how their lineages, histories and art-marking practices work together in expressing and performing personal identity.

2015

Same Planet, Different Worlds
How does theater’s site-specificity change in a massively interconnected global society? How do we address not just issues of language but larger contextual issues and cultural assumptions in translating work from one place to another? How do we grapple with cross-cultural and intercultural translations in work that is made collaboratively across borders or online?

Featuring: Abigail Browde & Michael Silverstone (600 Highwaymen), Douglas Howe, Kate Loewald (The Play Company), Aya Ogawa (Knife, Inc.), Erwin Maas, Mariano Pensotti and Dan Rothenberg.

Beyond Therapy: The Art of Acting in Contemporary Theater
For more than a century the dominant technique for acting has been based on Stanislavski, The Method and Psychological realism. How do actors do what they do in a post-Freudian, post-psychological, mediated, world of ensemble and collaborative work, post-dramatic theater, contemporary performance and multimedia immersive experiences?

Featuring: Birgit Huppuch, Juliana Francis Kelly, Tony Torn, Kate Valk and Paul Zimet.

2014 Long Table Conversations:

Performance, Technology & The Ever-Emerging Now
Joel Slayton (Zero1 Biennial), Kamal Sinclair (Sundance Festival/New Frontiers), Gunalan Nadarajan (University of Michigan, School of Art & Design), Yehuda Duenyas, Joe Diebes, Miwa Matreyek Chi-wang Yang (Cloud Eye Control) and Bill O’Brien (National Endowment for the Arts.

Diversity and Multiculturalism in a Global Context
Erwin Maas, Gabri Christa,MK Wegmann (National Performance Network), Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Nora Chipaumire Nike Jonah
& Hassan Mahamdallie (Creative Case for Diversity/UK), Monique Martin, Baraka Sele

Playwrights in Collaborative Processes
David Mendizabal, Harrison David Rivers, Deborah Stein, Suli Holum, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Eric Ting, Paul Lazar

American Theater and the Aesthetics of Democracy
Morgan Jenness, Jan Cohen Cruz, Sue Kessler (The Bushwick Starr), Abigail Browde (600 Highwaymen), Jess Chayes & Nick Benacerraf (The Assembly)

2013 Long Table Conversations:

Arts, Culture + Economy in a Post-Crash World
Barbara Bryan (Executive Director, Movement Research), Thomas Creed (Director, Cork Midsummer Festival), Zvonimir Dobrovic (Founder/Artistic Director of Queer Zagreb and Perforations Festival), Marta Keil ( Critic/Author and Curator of East European Performing Arts Platform Project), Jan Kennis (General Director for Cultural Affairs USA, The Netherlands Consulate), Barbara Lanciers (Program Director, Trust for Mutual Understanding/Company Member and Choreographer for Two-headed Calf ), Erwin Maas (Director/Royal Dutch Embassy Cultural Department), Elin Norquist (Project Manager, Swedish Arts Council), Mark Russell (Artistic Director, Under The Radar Festival), András Szántó (Writer/Researcher/Consultant, Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York)

Social Practice and Performance
Wenzel Bilger (Program Director of the Goethe-Institut New York), Gonzalo Casals (Deputy Executive Director, El Museo Del Barrio), Jan Cohen-Cruz (Editor, Public: A Journal of Imagining America and University Professor, Syracuse University), Edwin Culp (Associate Professor at the Communications Department, Universidad Iberoamericana), Simon Dove (Independent Curator), Melanie Joseph (Artistic Producer for the Foundry Theater), Florian Malzacher (Artistic Director of Impulse Theatre Biannual 2013, Germany, and Freelance Dramaturge/Curator), Michael Rohd (Founding Artistic Director, Sojourn Theatre), Ruth Wikler-Luker (Curator & Producer, Boom Arts), Sara Zatz (Associate Director, Ping Chong + Company)

The Theater of Tomorrow, Today
Kenneth Collins (Founder and Artistic Director of Temporary Distortion), Annie Dorsen (Director), Mikhael Tara Garver (Creator and Director of Fornicated), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Playwright and Dramaturg), Dave Malloy (Composer), Brian Rogers (Director, Video Artist, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of The Chocolate Factory Theater), Ben Vershbow (NY-based Theater Artist and Technologist)

The Politics of Cultural Production
Jess Barbagallo (Performer with Half Straddle, Big Dance Theater, Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf and The Builders Association), Hannah Bos (Writer/Performer, Co-Artistic Director of The Debate Society), Oliver Butler (Director, Co-Artistic Director of The Debate Society), Lisa Kron (Playwright/Performer, Co-Founder The Five Lesbian Brothers), Avia Moore (Director/Dramaturg/Creative Producer), Dan Rothenberg (Founding member and co-artistic director of the Pig Iron Theatre Company), Tina Satter (Artistic Director, Half Straddle), Clyde Valentin (Producing Artistic Director of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival), Paul Zimet (Artistic Director, Talking Band)

2012 Panel Discussions:

Performance and Context: The Black Box and The White Cube 
A conversation with Philip Bither (Senior Curator of Performing Arts, Walker Art Center), RoseLee Goldberg (Founding Director and Curator, Performa), Liz Magic Laser (Artist), David Levine (Artist)

Everyone’s A Critic! Exploring the Changing Landscape of Arts Writing
A conversation with Randy Gener (U.S. editor of CriticalStages.org), George Hunka (Superfluities Redux), Margo Jefferson (critic, author, professor) and Tom Sellar (Theater magazine (Yale) & Village Voice)