Since early 2013 in collaborations with visual and performing artists Carlos Maria Romero has explore the theatrical moment and its relation to power. They staged a succession of works that research the connection between sculpture and presence by means of situations loaded with erogenous stress.
Examining cases of human-object transvestism, like living-sculpture or in the spectrum of the erotic practices of BDSM, of which human-furniture is the most vibrant example, the project creates a ground to deepen notions of object-hood that partly relate to issues of fetishism, objectification, service, servitude and slavery. They also partly relate to the idea of “theatricality“ in minimal and performa- tive sculpture, since an audience (and its body) is required for its completion and enactment. Unders- tood in art as a certain performativity able to seduce into participation, a quality of theatre, is juxtaposed by the artists with the vulnerability that “emotional workers” experience in a neoliberal capitalistic society, where inmaterial labour conditions are vastly unprotected and by default ignored and exploited. A surpassed historical link between sexual workers and performing artists is subtly proposed as still actual with diminishing and queer-therapeutical-transcolonialist innuendo.
The sensual charge that a theatrical occasion carries due to power asymmetry, more clearly during participatory encouragement, is mirrored back to the public through strategies that reflect the context itself. For instance, in the project, the traditional disciplined voyeuristic affair between performer and specta- tor, and the unspoken contract of respectful separation, is subverted by an investigation of an empo- wered performer’s body and sexuality, that is able to enjoy and show enjoyment of the happening, and even able to suggest the closing of the proximity with mutual contact. A kind of social prosthetic moment, borrowed from the ambience of sexually emancipated scenarios, supports experimentation in a communal sensing, touching and interacting. Performativity is extended to the spectators, occurring by performing for, with and by the consensual allowance of observing and being observed. Spectatorship is liberated into an interplay of presence and sensorial stimulation. The fourth wall is sealed behind all those present, leaving them in a dimension between mirrors, like the retro-futuristic planar dungeon of the villains of Superman II. In the work, Maria Romero and his collaborators use a tautological operation to reference the materials and devices used during it: humans representing sculptural representations of humans; sculptures that enact sculpture; mirrors reflecting reflection; “the voyeuristic experience of viewing” refracting spectatorship; theatre that reflects the theatre.
This text arose from intentions, reflections, reviews and conversations with the audience and all the artists involved in the process and its previous outcomes. The project is named after the event has happened and it’s descriptive of the time, space and the people that took part, under its own logic it’s self-explanatory why.
Collaborators (editions): David González Jiménez (Bogota, Stockholm, New York), Erik Rodríguez (Bogota), Marcus Baldemar (Stockholm), Luis Garay (Barranquilla, Bogota), Juan Betancurth (New York), Susan Mar Landau (USA), William Collins (London, Zürich), Guillaume Marie (Paris, Krems, Lausanne), Monkey Town 5 (Barcelona).
CARLOS MARIA ROMERO & JUAN BETANCURTH | Abrons Arts Center
Playhouse
Friday, July 26, 7:00pm
Saturday, July 27, 7:00pm
Sunday, July 28, 4:00pm
Carlos Maria Romero, Juan Betancurth, David González Jiménez. 26.07.2013.- 28.07.2013 New York. Abrons Art Center. 19:00, 16:00. Names of all spectators separated by commas.
Within consequential encounters staged in different cities throughout 2013, Carlos Maria Romero, in collaborations with visual and performing artists, on this occasion Juan Betancurth, will develop a succession of works that explore the intersection between live-presence and the notion of sculpture. The process takes the psychiatric concept of paraphilia, as a sexual arousal to objects, situations or individuals, and its relation to fetishes, servitude and labor, to articulate the creation of objecthood.
Juan Betancurth’s mixed media works use themes from his own experiences. Power and submission are among the most common threads in his work. Exhibitions include DirtyLooks On Location, NY, Sketchy Walk, The New Museum, NY, On/Sincerity, Boston University College of Fine Arts, Boston MA, For Faith, Pain or Pleasure, Bulletin Board, CCS BARD, Red Hook, NY, Chamber of Delights, El Museo del Barrio, New York, Domesticus, Abrons Arts Center, NY and Altar to Myself, Queens Museum of Art, NY.
Carlos Maria Romero, Juan Betancurth, David González Jiménez, Nicole Oranges, Stephanie Freed, Stacey Haggin, Joey Wolfslau. 26.07.2013. New York. Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter at Abrons Arts Center. 19:00. Ahley Handel, Javier Gómez, Samara Davis, Charles Mosey, Pricela, Uni Yokota, Lauren Bakst, John Harper, Miriam Castillo, Sarah Bishop Stone, Gia Kourlas, Andrew Fassel, Wenzel Bilger, Eribe Sonsal, Zeynep Gurduz, Ryanna Gacy, Robert Tyree, Lucien Zayan, Agustin Perez-Rubio, David Velasco, Sara Gerth, Jen Muñoz, Jay Wegman, Stephen Facey, Javier González, Marissa Perel, Maria Retschwig, Ryan McNamara, Sam Rofck, Marc Streit, Zistcan Ugurlu, Naz Insel, Dark Mumbrack, Simel Keuiciejlu, Ben Pryor. /// Photos by Martin Camacho.
More photos: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/59097031549/carlos-maria-romero-juan-betancurth-david
Carlos Maria Romero, Juan Betancurth, David González Jiménez, Nicole Oranges, Stephanie Freed, Stacey Haggin, Joey Wolfslau. 27 & 28.07.2013. New York. Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter at Abrons Arts Center. 19:00 & 16:00. Kate, Kasia, Tom, Caleb, Jeremy, Tochtli, Adam, Madeleine, Susan, Boshko, Simon, Moe, Alice, Charles, Miguel, Marilyn, Bob, Christine, Alex, Joseph, Kuo, Ernesto R., Anne, Knus, Rebecca Nomes, Moss, Marin, Joseph. & Rafael Risemberg, Michael Di Pietro, Rebecca Warner, Madonna, Laurelinne Richard, Imanni Quezergue, Michael Hart, Gilliam Walsh, Genevieve C. Ferron, Maggie Cloud, Manny Wimple Thorpe, Joshua Sandler, Pedro Leopoldo Sánchez Torres, Anón Y Muss, Nicky Paraiso, Ereka, Nitza, Alberto Córdoba, Matthieu Tancrede, Andy Jordan, Wisa Risu, Yvonne Meier, Ryan Morris, Daniel Hwang, Lioyd, The Count of the Badlands, Ellijah Von Spofford, Nikola Tesla, Timothy Paru, Ryan Wenzel, Aark Water, Bri Connon. /// Photos by Martin Camacho.
More photos: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/59114955230/carlos-maria-romero-juan-betancurth-david
Reviews:
Gimme Shelter | Glitter and Chains
Marissa Perel wrote on August 27th, 2013 in http://blog.art21.org/2013/08/27/gimme-shelter-glitter-and-chains/
It was the year 2002 and the middle of winter in New York City. I was walking through Chelsea with an eclectic group of friends—a couple of noise musicians, sculptors, and a British avant-pop-cabaret maestro in a red velvet smoking jacket. The leader of our pack turned the corner at Ninth Avenue and opened the door to the bar and nightclub L.U.R.E. (Leather. Uniform. Rubber. Etc.) We were there to check out PORK, a weekly performance art event.
All I had really known of kink/BDSM performance was Bob Flanagan’s Supermasochist. And even though I had been thinking about relationships between pain and pleasure, sex and performance, domination and submission upon our visit to L.U.R.E., the scene brought me to a new level of consciousness.
Videos of men fisting played on screens throughout the club. Slings, harnesses, chains, straps, cuffs, and collars moved in unison with the precision of a synchronized swimming competition, but this set resembled a gym or maybe a boxing ring. Five to ten guys lined up to dispense and receive pain and pleasure in equal turns. Chains clinked together and leather straps sung against flesh. Grunting, crying, and cursing echoed throughout the bar. Along the back wall, live performances took place in cages, where men flaunted various parts of their anatomy. At times, a big guy would enter the cages to rough the men up, smacking, beating, and berating them though occasionally offering tender comments and caresses. My friends and I were awed, terrified, and curious.
Fast-forward to last month’s Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter at Abrons Arts Center, where L.U.R.E came to mind during Carlos Maria Romero, Juan Betancurth, David González Jiménez. 27.07.2013. New York. Abrons Art Center. 19:00. Names of all spectators separated by commas, a collaborative performance by choreographer Carlos Maria Romero and visual artist Juan Betancurth. Part nightclub, theater, warehouse, and wood-shop, the performance turned Abron’s Playhouse space into a discursive site where bodies, objects, words, and smoke performed with equal resonance.
After a walking tour through the back stairwell of the theater, the audience sat on stage with the artists. As the performance began, the artists posed against electric glamour—neon, fur, leather, lights, and a large mirror. Betancurth sat on a rocking horse with a muzzle. Romero stood. As the lights grew brighter and the bass of the music grew deeper, the tableau intensified but quickly descended into the mundane. The audience was asked to help Romero roll and then unroll Marley dance flooring to no consequence.
An extended period of darkness ensued while Betancurth maneuvered the hardware, tools, and mechanisms of the theater in the midst of lights and smoke. Romero quietly recited excerpts from philosophical books on labor, describing “emotional work” as separate from “productive,” “immaterial,” and “empty” work. It sounded like a mash up of Michel de Montaigne and social anthropology. Betancurth presented objects of his making: sex toys with extra masochistic qualities that insinuated real pain. Various sorts of pinchers and grabbers with sharp points, an animal brush with what looked like a mace on one side, and a pony tail butt plug with weights attached were passed around the audience like a show and tell. The garage door at the back of the theater opened to the sound of thudding techno music and revealed a carpentry shop; its vices, hammers, and slop-sinks began to take on a sexual flavor. The audience was given entry into a world where sex, power, language, mediocrity, labor, and fantasy bumped up against each other, stood in for one another, or came awkwardly together like bodies that cruise through clubs and industrial spaces in search of pleasure or punishment.
Whatreminded me of L.U.R.E. was the clanking sounds of chains, metal rings, and tubing. And also the permission I felt I’d been granted to be a spectator—being a voyeur and not knowing whether the scene before me was meant for me. The banality of those acts didn’t seem to need me as a witness, but Romero and Betancurth inspired me to think about performance as a type of prosthetic, an extension of the body that serves to connect it to an experience, task, or action that it cannot produce on its own.
This idea of the prosthetic then reminded me of Samuel R. Delany’s book Times Square Red Times Square Blue in which he argues for a “community of contact,” where connections across lines of class, race, gender, and ability take precedent over social networking, status climbing, and homogenous relationships where like attracts like. For me, what was important about L.U.R.E as an institution (it closed in 2003) and live performance in general are the very real opportunities for contact that only such communal spaces can offer.
Katy Dammers responds to Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth’s performance at Emergency Glitter. August 5, 2013
As I was leaving Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth’s performance as part of the Emergency Glitter Festival on Friday I couldn’t help but think to myself – was that all there is? Their performance included smoke and mirrors, both literally and metaphorically. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that even though I had been played, it had not been in jest.
While Romero and Betancurth wrote in the program notes that their central focus was on paraphilia—the sexual arousal to objects, situations, and individuals—I found myself preoccupied with their navigation of the relationship between audience and performer. Sure, sexual arousal was present: both men first appeared bound in leather, fetishistic objects were passed around the circle of seated audience members, and Carlos later danced a solo composed of rolling through various suggestive poses. I understood these overt references to sexuality as a way to confront the perhaps more tantalizing subjects of voyeurism, performativity, and spectatorship.
This piece was one in a series of collaborations Romero has set with performance and visual artists throughout 2013. At Emergency Glitter he worked with Betancurth who described himself as a mixed media artist interested in the themes of power and submission. The connection between dance and visual art has been of particular interest in recent years, in both the art world (see museum exhibitions such as the 2012 Whitney Biennial and MoMA’s 2012 fall series Some Sweet Day) and the dance world (see pieces including William Forsythe’s video installation City of Abstracts, Stephen Petronio’s recent collaboration with artist Janine Antoni in Like Lazarus Did). Though this intersection between the visual and performing arts seems especially timely, artists, performers, and thinkers alike have been pondering this tenuous and at times charged relationship for generations.
This intersection is brought out within the context of what Romero and Betancurth curiously termed “the notion of sculpture.” Here it seems that instead of sculpture itself the artistic team was interested in the ideas behind it, its particular qualities, and the theories of its enactment. Romero and Betancurth’s specific mention to sculpture combined with their power-play relationships with the audience initially reminded me of Michael Fried’s theory of theatricality. Fried proposed this idea in his 1967 essay “Art and Objecthood,” a response to the work of minimalist artists Robert Morris and Donald Judd. Taking a derisive tone, he called their work “theatrical” because it required the participation of the viewer to be fully enacted and made complete. Although Fried criticized this seductive “stage presence” of the object as proof of its incomplete nature, I kept thinking of his idea of an unspoken contract between sculpture and viewer when watching—or perhaps it is more fitting characterized as participating in—Romero and Betancurth’s piece. In Fried’s analysis the sculpture’s static, silent presence gives it increased power, while Romero and Betancurth used movement, speech, and stage effects to manipulate their relationship with the audience. My reaction may have begun with Fried, but Romero and Betancurth’s performance pushed past him to ask: what happens when the theatrical talks back?
The piece began with a seemingly innocent introduction from intern Nicole Oranges who after giving us the usual spiel about turning off our phones directed us to the theater. This transition quickly became a journey itself as we wound through the depths of the Abrons Arts Center only to finally arrive in the same lobby in which we began. Even before we entered the theatrical space we were engaged in a power play that highlighted our initial blithe acceptance of instructions. Inside the theater the directives continued as Romero showed us where to stack our chairs, told us to write our names on a piece of paper taped to the wall, and demonstrated where we should sit. Next, Romero asked for some “strong volunteers” to help him and Betancurth roll out marley across the stage. After some initial hesitation two men assisted the performers and followed their every direction, even when asked to roll the marley up as soon as it was placed on the floor. When Romero again asked for two volunteers to help with the same task a sense of frustration tinged with humor was palpable throughout the audience that stared on in silence, empty of willing volunteers.
I was surprised by this staunch refusal—was it tired apathy or quiet revolt? After some fervent, and even angry, pleading some volunteers begrudgingly acquiesced and the piece continued. I wondered what would have happened if we had stood our ground—would the piece have stalled and sputtered to a stop despite the pulsating music behind it? And what did our reluctant acquiescence mean? Did we feel bad for the performers and aid them in sympathy, or were we compelled by their theatricality, a nagging sense that the piece needed our participation?
As the piece continued Romero and Betancurth continued to exert their control over the audience, but with less direct commands and instructions. In the second half of the performance the curtain was lowered just a foot off the floor while Betancurth sat in the audience, his face illuminated by the glow from his laptop balanced in his lap. Intrigued by what could be seen underneath the curtain viewers eagerly lay down on their stomachs to peer under the fabric. Even when watching the performance required physically lying prone on the floor, a task not easily managed in a dress, my desire to see was greater than any thought of momentary impropriety. If Romero had asked me to lie down on my stomach I likely would have felt annoyed, and even uncomfortable in what can be a vulnerable position, but without specific instructions I immediately followed.
Looking at Betancurth from underneath the curtain I saw that he remained entranced by his computer, watching what I assumed was porn (my own attempt to continue the paraphilia theme). Staring at him from a darkened space, I felt like a peeping Tom. Here though, instead of watching someone undress from a shrouded outlook I watched a man whom I assumed to be having a similarly voyeuristic experience. Watching someone watch someone magnified the entire experience of viewing itself and reflected back to me the perennial question: who was watching whom? As audience member was I watching an artist perform? Or as audience member was I watching the artist to know how to perform? Or more clearly – through the act of watching was I myself performing? Like Fried suggested, is the act of viewing (whether sculpture or performance) no less than a theatrical confrontation – a squaring off between two engaged actors?
This confrontation was made paramount when Carlos sat in front of a large, angled mirror, the audience clustered behind him and watching intently. His eyes stared with a hard, unerring glare that was magnified and made all the more eerie by his white contact lenses. Instead of appearing like an egotistical Adonis he seemed like a fervent, even unhinged man pleading with our locked gazes. Watching him our eyes met in a strange third dimension created within the mirror’s reflection. This virtual connection in the mirror reminded me of social media profiles on the internet—you are never quite sure who is watching you and if others are aware you are looking at them. In that vast virtual reality we use carefully calibrated reflections of ourselves to deflect the greater intensity and consummate anxiety of ever looking directly at each other.
Romero and Betancurth drew attention to the theatrical setting, most notably by having the audience share the stage with the performers. Throughout the performance the audience members were treated like other subsidiary performers: seated on stage like performers receiving notes, watching for the fly line to drop as the stage-hand called heads, being surrounded by the smoke of a fog machine. Although these tropes easily slipped into clichés, they did made the audience conscious of the performance context. It was the acrid, yet familiar smell of the fog that immediately brought me back to the performances of my childhood—of ballets doused in the mystery and majesty of that expensive fog machine. Still, sitting in the swirl of the fog, watching the lights shift around me, I felt as if I was in a performance I had not rehearsed.
Romero and Betancurth’s performance manipulated the relationship with the audience in multiple ways and at such frequency that it ultimately became a less effective means of engaging viewers. Instead of following their directives intently I began to lose interest in what seemed a constant stream of changing strategies and scene changes. While this structure demonstrated interesting shifts in power dynamics, it left me feeling that Romero and Betancurth were constantly grasping to hold our attention in new ways instead of trusting the rich source material they already had to engage us. Culling their performance to a few of these scenarios would have likely pushed the limits of the audience more and made for a more challenging, and ultimately more interesting, piece. What would have happened if they had asked for a third set of volunteers to help roll out the marley and we sat immovable in resolute opposition? In that kind of uncomfortable, difficult moment of waiting the smoke would have had time to clear.
More of culturbot.org about Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter:
http://www.culturebot.org/2013/07/18239/emergency-glitter/
http://www.culturebot.org/tag/festival-tbd/
FESTIVAL TDB: EMERGENCY GLITTER
http://roberttyree.net/2013/08/06/festival-tdb-emergency-glitter/
Robert Tyree wrote on August 6, 2013:
…The works inflected by the glorious renaissance of technical choreography marvelously blossoming in 2013 were programmed with a counterpoint of more brash and bluntly provocative works. Those that stood out most for me were Rebecca Patek’s ineter(a)nal f/ear and Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth’s, Carlos Maria Romero, Juan Betancurth, David González Jiménez. 26.07.2013.- 28.07.2013 New York. Abrons Art Center. 19:00, 16:00. Names of all spectators separated by commas.
…I’m embarrassed to share this, but it’s worth confessing that I referred in my notes to the final piece I’ll highlight as “the Latins.” More accurately, Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth’s Carlos Maria Romero, Juan Betancurth, David González Jiménez. 26.07.2013.- 28.07.2013 New York. Abrons Art Center. 19:00, 16:00. Names of all spectators separated by commas was a clear stand out for me.
I saw Romero and Betancurth’s premiere at Emergency Glitter, and it was the only performance in the festival that offered me insights that, relative to the field of contemporary performance I’m familiar with, felt alternative and assertively non-assimilated. While the two other works I saw staged at Abron’s Playhouse each explored the spatial dynamics offered by a stage-seated audience facing the ornate, vacant auditorium, Romero and Betancurth’s work reset the coordinates for such play. I was impressed to hear that the artists had a total of just six hours over three days to set their work in the venue. They pulled together an impressive treatment of the space that managed to make the hefty ideas inherent to the work remarkably accessible and engaging for me.
What hefty ideas, you ask? From the online description: “Within consequential encounters staged in different cities throughout 2013, Carlos Maria Romero, in collaborations with visual and performing artists, on this occasion Juan Betancurth, will develop a succession of works that explore the intersection between live-presence and the notion of sculpture. The process takes the psychiatric concept of paraphilia, as a sexual arousal to objects, situations or individuals, and its relation to fetishes, servitude and labor, to articulate the creation of objecthood.”
The only thing I’d highlight from artists’ description is servitude and labor, which gets a bit drown out by sexual arousal and fetishes in my reading. The sound score included a substantial section speaking to contemporary conditions of labor, in which I remember a remarkably breezy unpacking of the phrase “emotional worker.” A new concept to me, resonate and useful. And let’s not forget the roaring menace of the unattended table saw. I can’t imagine the sex party where the prosthetic both performers engaged as a final gesture might be, um, utilized? But the episodic composition in the lead up got me to a perfect pitch for a happy slap of poetic synthesis…
Broadly speaking, many of the works in Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter seemed to nod at a cynicism in the corner while alluding to some prospective antidote at their core. That nod is a necessary gesture in a field as “worthless” as contemporary performance, where so many of us work in conditions of relentless economic vulnerability, without access to affordable health care despite the highly physical work we do. That many of these performances risked understatement seemed a gesture of good faith in the sophistication of audience attentiveness—a gesture that somehow leaned toward a remedy to the field’s predicament.
…Pryor has identified an interest in programming work both from outside the United States and from outside the theater world… As noted, the work of Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth was a clear winner for me in this first regard…
Trespassing on the Proving Ground of the Next Generation
By GIA KOURLAS
Published: July 28, 2013
NY Times / Gia Kourlas : At the start of his performance installation, Carlos Maria Romero, who creates encounters with other artists — in this case, it was Juan Betancurth — arranged for the audience to walk through a maze of back hallways and stairwells of Abrons until the journey ended where it began (the lobby). The piece… took place on the stage of Abrons’s main theater and explored… disorientation. The space was dark and foggy; tools, some of them fetish instruments, were handed out… Its title, given after the fact, will include the names of the artists and spectators…
http://seatfiller.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/carlos-maria-romero-and-juan-betancurth/
Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth
What I saw last night. Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth at Abron Arts Playhouse Theater.The performance begins in the lobby where the usher leads the audience up the stairs and then down through the bowels of the art center like the scene in Spinal Tap where the band can’t find the stage. After coming full circle, we are brought to the stage where two men are chained together in an awkward pose of fulcrums and weights. Audience members are imposed upon to untangle them. When free they call for volunteers to roll out and roll back up flooring. There is show and tell with various objects of a sexual or sinister nature and fog is periodically blasted onto the stage.
Elements: fog, chains, leather, railroad spikes, glass dildo, crops, chairs, rolls of flooring etc.
Titles:””
TIME OUT NY: Ben Pryor talks about Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter
Time Out New York: There is Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth. What are they doing?
Ben Pryor: They’re the ones that don’t fit, in a way. They totally fit from an aesthetic and ideological point of view, but they’re not in the New York community. Carlos is originally from Bogotá and has been all over the place—he’s been dancing and making work, but has also curated stuff. I first met him at a festival in France in 2010. We’ve stayed in touch, and now he’s more based in the U.K and is trying to focus on his artistic practice. Carlos has done this project a couple of times; he works with a different collaborator, and it doesn’t actually get named until it happens. In the end, the piece will be called July 25th, Abrons Art Center, New York, New York, and every single audience member’s name will be listed. For me, it’s a very visual-art practice approach. And there’s a lot of visual-art strategies in what he’s doing in terms of looking at objects within sculpture and looking at the audience as object. I think he wants the audience to be doing stuff during the work. I’m not quite sure. It’s getting developed in the week and moments before the program happens. This is in the Playhouse, because they wanted to work with the machinery of the theater. Juan is a visual artist who deals with performance. They felt a certain alignment with each other. Juan is also from Bogotá, but has been in New York for a while and works a lot with Elastic City.
TIME OUT NY: Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter
Ben Pryor presents Festival TBD: Emergency Glitter, which features performances by Lauren Grace Bakst, Burr Johnson, Niall Jones, Rebecca Patek, Carlos Maria Romero and Juan Betancurth, Gillian Walsh, Rebecca Warner and Emily Wexler.
http://www.abronsartscenter.org/performances/past/festival-tbd-emergency-glitter-/
FESTIVAL TBD: EMERGENCY GLITTER
July 24, 2013 - July 28, 2013 at Abrons Arts Center NY
Festival TBD is a new amorphous framework conceived by Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor as a series of loosely related curatorial endeavors, each with their own structure and context. Emergency Glitter is the first Festival TBD, created to support a new generation of choreographers and performance makers.
Emergency Glitter is about joy and fun and play. It is sex in the summertime. It is “no T no shade” getting blonder and blonder. It is contemporary performance’s obsession with pop cultural phenomenology. It is feminist ideologies grappling with and dismantling circumstances of objectification. It is the inherent queerness, hope and sadness in dance. It is exploring the in-between and the uncomfortable. It is blurring the lines. It is a romance with the audience. It is explorations in performativity. It is breaking like a wounded heart. It is sweaty bodies moving because that’s all that makes sense. It is transcendence from the ordinary. It is a practice of intervention. It is between representation and experience. It is beach time sunsets. It is butt cheeks and twerking. It is spectacle and excess. It is drinks and snacks in the garden. It is grappling with our non-institution-ality-ism. It is the ecstatic, somatic body and a charged presence with a return to capital D – Dance. It is a coming together of similarly minded artists taking a stab at something new. It is the right time to shine.
Bring an open mind, a generous spirit, a tank top and a fantasy. If you are in trouble put some glitter. Dance the night away. Glitter never rests.
More: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/59148791622/http-www-abronsartscenter-org-performances-past-f
Carlos Maria Romero, Erik Rodríguez, David González Jiménez. 25.1.2013. Bogotá. Cra 5 No. 26 A - 47 Apto 1705 Torre C. 20:00. Camo Graphy, Ricardo León, Carolina (Green) D’Lacoste, Carlos E. Cabrices H., Diana Monroy, Ricardo Gutiérrez, Manuel Barrios, Marcus Richards, Sylvia Jaimes, Eloisa Jaramillo, Juan Zapata, Alejandro Díaz, Charles González, Kathrin Dehlan, Sergio Casteblanco, Raimundo Villalba, Oscar Cortés, Elsy Karina Rodríguez Vergara. /// Video fragment and photo: CAMO
Carlos Maria Romero, William Collins, Beat Fluck. 02.03.2014. Zürich.zürich moves! Studio A at Tanzhaus Zürich. 18:00. Marc Streit, Lukas Beyeler, Manfred Schachenmann, Ernst Fri, Baki Cavdar, Nils Amadeus Lange, Teresa Vittucci, Gil Schneider, Michael Rüegg, Patrick de Rham, Tamara Alegre, Sabina Reich, Andreas Dahlke, Thierry Frochaux, Felix Lübkemann, Oliver Look, Tibu Maillag.
zürich moves! Festival for Contemporary Dance and Performance March 1 to 8, 2014
www.zurichmoves.com - www.tanzhaus-zuerich.ch
Curator: Marc Streit
With: Alessandro Sciarroni, Alida Dors, Andrea Martini, Carlos Maria Romero, Daniel Kok, Diane Gemsch, François Chaignaud, Ivan Blagajcevic, Jochen Heckmann, Lukas Beyeler, Marie-Caroline Hominal, Melanie Wirz, Mercé de Randé, Nils Amadeus Lange, Tarek Halaby, Xavier Le Roy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaz9fO6DT8M&feature=youtu.be
Carlos Maria Romero & William Collins
For zürich moves! live artist Carlos Maria Romero and choreographer William Collins explore the theatrical moment and its relation to power. Since early 2013 in collaborations with visual and performing artists Maria Romero has staged a succession of works that research the connection between sculpture and presence by means of situations loaded with erogenous stress.
Examining cases of human-object transvestism, like living-sculpture or in the spectrum of the erotic practices of BDSM, of which human-furniture is the most vibrant example, the project creates a ground to deepen notions of objecthood that partly relate to issues of fetishism, objectification, service, servitude and slavery. They also partly relate to the idea of “theatricality“ in minimal and performative sculpture, since an audience (and its body) is required for its completion and enactment. Understood in art as a certain performativity able to seduce into participation, a quality of theatre, is juxtaposed by the artists with the vulnerability that “emotional workers” experience in a neoliberal capitalistic society, where inmaterial labour conditions are vastly unprotected and by default ignored and exploited. A surpassed historical link between sexual workers and performing artists is subtly proposed as still actual with diminishing and queer-therapeutical-transcolonialist innuendo.
Concept/Performance: Carlos Maria Romero, William Collins | Sound concept: David González Jiménez | Previous collaborators (editions): Erik Rodríguez (Bogotá), William Collins (London), Marcus Baldemar (Stockholm), Luis Garay (Barranquilla, Bogotá), Juan Betancurth (New York), Guillaume Marie (Paris)| Special thanks to: Michèle Graf, Sabo Day, Fabio Segura, Chris Leuenberger, Sam Causer.
We invite our audience to write to us with questions or comments that come to them later after the event happened. We will be happy to receive them and answer them too. carlosmaria@tiempoespacioespectador.org + wcollins83@gmail.com
http://www.tanzhaus-zuerich.ch/en/projekt/sculpture-project
William Collins has a research-based choreographic practice. His practice currently questions the Agency of the Spectator and he is investigating the impact these questions have in creating contemporary movement-based work. Previously, his research looked at the Agency of the Performer. His interests in agency are linked to the grassroots organization of political movements such as Anonymous and Occupy that epitomize the meta-modernist condition. After graduating from the Laban Centre in London and SNDO in Amsterdam, Collins has worked extensively throughout Europe and elsewhere in festivals and venues that include: Tak Teater (FL), Sophiensaele (DE), Nederlandse Dansdagen (NL), Fabbrica Europa (IT), Opera Estate (IT), Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam (NL), Juni Festival (GUA) and i-Dance (HK).
Website>
zürich moves! 2014
Contemporary Dance & Performance Festival
March 1 - 8, 2014
In March 2014, Tanzhaus Zürich is for the 3rd time venue and co-producer of the dance festival «zürich moves!». From the 1st - 8th March the festival collects contemporary dance beyond the national borders in a change of perspective and allows the communication processes through artistic means.
«zürich moves!» initiates meetings with artists, who deal with political and interpersonal perspectives and attitudes. Besides the performances and dance film screenings at cinema Riffraff as partner venue for “Dance on Screen”, the artists are involved in trainings and site specific Performances at Kustraum Walcheturm.
zürich moves! Artists 2014:
Alessandro Sciarroni «FOLK-S - will you still love me tomorrow?» (I)
Alida Dors & Jochen Heckmann «the space in between» (NL, CH)
Andrea Martini «What happend in Torino?» (I/IL)
Carlos Maria Romero «Sculpture Project» (CO/GB)
Daniel Kok/Diskodanny «Cheerleader of Europe» (B/SIN)
Diane Gemsch «NaNa» (CH)
François Chaignaud & MC Hominal «Duchesses» (F, CH)
Ivan Blagajcevic & Melanie Wirz «All Eyes on Us» (HR,CH)
Lukas Beyeler «Everyone Wants Me It’ s My Biggest Downfall» (CH)
Marie-Caroline Hominal «Froufrou», «Silver without Gold» (CH)
Mercé de Randé «Das Tebras as Treboadas» (E/CH)
Nils Amadeus Lange & Teresa Vittucci «YOU BETTA CRY» (D, A/CH)
Tarek Halaby «Deep Aerobics» & Profi-Training (B/USA)
Xavier Le Roy «Le Sacre du Printemps» (F)
Supported by: Tanzhaus Zurich, Kunstraum Walcheturm,
Cinema Riffraff - Neugass AG, CINEDANS - Dance on Screen,
Miller Genuine Draft, Ernst Goehner Foundation, Pro Helvetia,
Culture city of Zurich, Canton of Zurich Cultural Competence Center,
Migros Culture Percentage, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst
http://www.tanzhaus-zuerich.ch/en/schedule/festival-zuerich-moves
Carlos Maria Romero, Marcus Baldemar, David González Jiménez. 3.3.2013. Stockholm. MDT. 15:00. Names of all spectators separated by commas.
The colombian artist Carlos Maria Romero has invited various artists to this project, in this case dancer/choreographer Marcus Baldemar, to develop a collection of works that explore the intersection between live-presence and the notion of sculpture.
The process takes the psychiatric concept of paraphilia, as a sexual arousal to objects, situations or individuals, and its relation to fetishes, to articulate the creation of objecthood. Partly relating to the practice of living sculpture, recurrent in the art realm, in vaudeville and on the streets of every capital, the project will be confronted with a fucked up situation – not just objects representing humans, but the other way around: humans representing sculptures or objects – a theater classic of transvestism.
This work will be staged in different cities throuout 2013.
It is going to be developed in collaboration with one artist at a time with previous online preparation. Its working sessions in each place should be maximum 5 days long including the presentation date and will take no longer than 6h per day. The piece should last no less than 30 minutes on each occasion. This work is a collection, but every piece is a unique work too. It can be sold.
(With the support of the DEPARTS network. DEPARTS is funded by the European Commission, Culture program.)
http://mdtsthlm.se/artists/in-residence/marcus-baldemar-and-carlos-maria-romero-in-residence/
http://theswedishdancehistory.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/sunday-reading-session/
Sunday Reading Session at MDT in Stockholm
Posted on April 5, 2013 by Jessyka
On Sunday 3rd of March we discussed and read The Swedish Dance History Vol. 4 together in the foyer at MDT. It was enlightening and cosy. We ate soup and shared our thoughts about this all-encompassing project. The TSDH Vol. Reading Sunday Session took place before a showing of a work in progress by Marcus Baldemar and Carlos Maria Romero and before a performance of Eleanor Bauer’s “ELEANOR!” and “(BIG GIRLS DO BIG THINGS)” in the theatre. Read more here.
http://mdtsthlm.se/artists/the-swedish-dance-history-vol-4-sunday-reading-session/
More photos: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/98930881271/http-theswedishdancehistory-wordpress-com-2013-04
Photo: Héctor Eguia del Rio & Mariana My Suikkanen Gomes
Carlos Maria Romero, Marcus Baldemar, David González Jiménez. 3.3.2013. Stockholm. Moderna Dans Theater.15:00. Lovisa Björkman, Daniela Krestelica, Binnie Kristal, Olle Svahn, Patrik Lindén, Linn Hilda Lamberg, Danjel Andersson, Lyubov Niskanen, Francesca Honegger, Marcello Lentini, Johannes Blomqvist, Emmi Venna, Zoe Poluch, Alexsandar Beorgiou, Sarah Hammeken, Mariana My Suikkanen Gomes, Elin W., Héctor Eguia del Rio, Halla Olafsdottir, Tatu Hämäläinen, Stina Dahlström, Marie Topp, Stina Nyberg, Macken, Sophie Augot, Nadja Hjorton, Rebecka Stillman, Jess Watson-Galbraith, Jens Strandberg, Emma-Kim Hagdahl, Malin Stattin, Linda Blomqvist, Meilin Wong, Leandro Zappala, Johan Erenius, Ioan Durant.
Photos: Héctor Eguia del Rio & Mariana My Suikkanen Gomes
More photos: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/99009670516/carlos-maria-romero-marcus-baldemar-david + http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/99010659186/carlos-maria-romero-marcus-baldemar-david
Carlos Maria Romero, Guillaume Marie. 10.09.2013. Paris. Il faut brûler pour briller (édition 9), Plata-forme des Performers at Les Voûtes. 20:00. David Di Bilio, Klaus Fruchtnis, Camila Salgado, Romaric Vinet-Kammerer, Vincent Passerat, Pascal Kisrch, Carles Romero, Matthieu Laurette, Clement Garcia, Pablo Novorro, Jorge Pivilk, Guillaume Bordiu, Jonathan Drillet, Yval Rozman, Pauline Regnaut, Justín Landré, Fernando Cabral, Barbara Jovine, Gaëlle Bourgs, Gaël Depauw, Marienne Chargois, Rény Chevillard, Lucile Latour, Valerie Zimmermann, David Wampach, Sabine Flifert, Cecilia Bangolea, Eve Patris Schaeffer, Adrien Pelletier, Rachel Alleger, Jeanne Clavel, Eisile Lagade, Sam Causer. /// Photo by Angèle Micaux.
More photos: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/68230531356/carlos-maria-romero-guillaume-marie
IL FAUT BRULER POUR BRILLER édition n°9
PLATE-FORME DE PERFORMERS
Paris | Caen | Beyrouth
IL FAUT BRULER POUR BRILLER est un point de rassemblement d’artistes du spectacle vivant ainsi qu’une force de proposition au service de la performance. Des artistes des cinq continents, de toutes les disciplines - danse, théâtre, arts visuels, musique, video, web artistes – sont invités à proposer des formes courtes et inédites, à offrir au public un instantané de leur travail, un laboratoire de leurs expérimentations artistiques. Depuis quelques années, en proposant de mettre en regard plusieurs lieux en France et à l’étranger IL FAUT BRULER POUR BRILLER dessine de nouvelles relations entre les territoires, publics et institutions, et expérimente de nouveaux modes de traversée. IL FAUT BRULER POUR BRILLER s’inscrit dans une démarche de découverte, d’échange et de soutien à la diffusion de la jeune création.
L’édition se déroule en trois temps et trois villes : à Paris les 9 et 10 septembre, à Caen les 15, 16, 17 décembre, à Beyrouth les 19, 20, 21 décembre 2013, et marque ainsi un processus de rayonnement depuis Paris et l’Ile-de-France, avec une étape en région, pour finir sur une destination à l’étranger. Nous vous invitons au lancement de la 9ème édition de IL FAUT BRULER POUR BRILLER et à la découverte de sa programmation parisienne dès la rentrée de septembre.
> 10 septembre
Bétonsalon - Centre d’art et de recherche / 20h // 9 esplanade Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Rez-de-Chaussée Halle aux Farines, 75013 Paris
3 performances (1h) : -Tommy Noonan / - Claire Viviane Sobottke /- Wagons Libres (Sandra Iche, Mary Chebbah, Renaud Golo, Pascale Schaer, Vincent Weber)
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Les Voûtes / 20h // 19 rue des Frigos, 75013 Paris // http://www.lesvoutes.org/
Performance de Carlos Maria Romero & Guillaume Marie (1h30)
suivie à partir de 22h30 d’une soirée avec Krikor, music & dj set
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Directeur artistique : Youness Anzane
IL FAUT BRULER POUR BRILLER 9 est soutenu par l’Institut Français - Région Basse-Normandie, l’institut Acte du CNRS (équipe ESPAS), l’Université Paris 7 - Diderot (équipe CERILAC), CNRS, UMR ACTE.
http://www.brulerpourbriller.com/pages/HOME.html
http://www.brulerpourbriller.com/Images/VISUELS/CP_IFBPB.pdf
Carlos Maria Romero, Guillaume Marie, Charles Gonzalez Bernal, Manuel Ducosson. 5.12.2014. Lausanne. Les Urbaines at Arsenic, Salle 1. 23:00. Marc Streit, Carole Beyeler, Deirdre Ryan, Brian Schoo, Brenna Murphy, Lukas Beyeler, Aaron Ross, Tom Clancey, Birch "human” Cooper, Jitka Mach Semotamova, Tomas Mach, Marilyn Themo, Gabriel Berlier, Claude Huber,t Isaline, Ilaria Orsi, Luigi Bozzo, Morgane, Delphine B, Thomas Wimzenried, Vladislav Tschumi, Helene Mariethoz, David Riatsch, Pavel Spiridonov, Olivier Cavalier, Silvie Dali, David Zorro, Cesare Leoni, Frenk Vinci, Enėa, Michele Morier, Fred Morier, Fabian Aydin, Nina Langensand, Celine Zufferey, Michael Scheuplein, Tizian, Ysaline Rochat, Philippe Oberson, Bruno Dest, Daniel Peter, Leia Falquet, Alicia Grandjean, Anouk Zurbuchen, Frida Legeret, Antonin Steullet, Micheke Pralomg, Federica Martini, Samuel Schellenberg, Emrah Bostan, Stephanie Schneider, Alexia Knezovic, Marine Dardant, Jacques Benoit, Henri Rene, Antonio Paone Louise Roux, Riccardo Arzuffi, Anna Croce, Philippe Stoll, Maria Da Silva, Illi Billy, Elise Pernet, David Maye, Adrien Barazzone, Delphine Abrecht, Cyril Mikhail, Melanie Dousset, Alain Borek, Camille Luscher, Romain Bionda, Marie Capel, Dominique Fleury, Caroline Lam, Nadine Fuchs, Christian Girarddelacouleur, Merouan Ammor, Isabelle Vuong, Karl Gipse, Annina Machaz, Mathias Ringgenberg, Mira Kandathil, Adriana Cavallaro, Amaya Ha Minh, Pi Why, Ruben Valdez, Thinault Brevet, Garlic, Miki Buschi, Ivan, Jj Basic, Sophie Guyot, Anna Van Bree, Ode De Castellius, Sandrine Kuster, Krassen Krastev, Robert Fux, Inez Cierna, Bertrand Rey, Spela Glavac, Ivan Prieto Fernandez, Michael Hart, M11 Crystal, Flav.uagniauxx, Emilie Vullioud, Leila Trabelsi Ferran Font, Newton Whitelaw.
Photos © Nelly Rodriguez, Greg Clément & David Wohlschlag
More photos: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/107719019051/carlos-maria-romero-guillaume-marie-charles + http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/107719441926/carlos-maria-romero-guillaume-marie-charles
Carlos Maria Romero, Guillaume Marie, Charles Gonzalez Bernal, Manuel Ducosson. 6.12.2014. Lausanne. Les Urbaines at Arsenic, Salle 1. 23:00. Zoé Blanc, Kevin Sommer, Nisrin Al-Zubaidy, Lukas Briner, Jean-Luc Marchina, Franck Aria, Laura Ipoma, Alberto Verde, Claudia Awad, Allegra Morpurgo, Deirdre McKenna, Eoin Mc Carthy, Matteo Soldati, Celine Gantner, Laia Sole, Marc Sudan, Celine Phan, Laurence Maillard, Sophie Blanquet, Simon Boitte, Sebastien Vallelian, Miguel Angel Melgares Calzado, Natalia Dominguez Rangel, Sonja Jokiniemi, Julien Nagel, Pedro Miguel Rocha, Martin Genton, Raphael Pfeiffer, Joséphine Maillefer, Rebecca Frey, Carla Costa, Damien Bornand, Russell, Annelise Longchamp, Nathalie Joner, Patrick Bapst, Mathias Clivaz, Arto Goz, Mama Vava, Gyna Lolobrigida, Ewe Cu, Fred Burger, Patrick de Rham, Coco, Hubert Cola, Eleonor C., Robert Furtwangler, Manon K., Yumi Cosson, Leon Salazar, Anne-P. Mittaz, Ahuckk, Cathy Mathez, Sofy Pajak, Yves Remord, Jose Antonio Rey, Bettina Leoni, Luana Kautz, Ludovica Gianocca, Eric Hubert, Julien Hattab, Nico Ducrayx, Panacotta P, Styrbjörn Bagheera, Mufasa Larsson, Sarah Jane Moloney, M11 Crystal, Michael Hart, Newton Whitelaw.
Photos © Nelly Rodriguez, Greg Clément & David Wohlschlag
Carlos Maria Romero, Guillaume Marie. 5, 6.12.2014. Lausanne. Les Urbaines at Arsenic, Salle 1. 23:00. Names of all the spectators separated by commas.
A personality tightrope artist, Carlos Maria Romero likes to tread sensual cords: those that (somewhat problematically) delineate sexuality and society, or performer and audience. The artist’s body, as an object of fantasy, is explored in its relationship to power. As a mirror experience to the spectator becoming a voyeur, the audience becomes the show. This performance is not suitable for under 16s.
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Equilibriste de tempérament, Carlos Maria Romero aime évoluer sur les lignes sensuelles : celle parfois problématique marquant la cohabitation entre sexualité et société ou celle séparant le performeur de son public. Le corps de l’artiste, objet de fantasme, est exploré dans sa relation au pouvoir. Expérience miroir du spectateur se faisant voyeur, de l’audience devenant spectacle. Ce spectacle est déconseillé aux moins de 16 ans.
http://www.urbaines.ch/en/program?day=&query=carlos%20maria&location=&type=
Carlos Maria Romero, Guillaume Marie. 26.4.2014. Krems. The Great Big Togetherness in donau festival 14 at Forum Frohner. 15:00. Astrid Dreschler, Philip Latus, Liz Rosenfeld, Igor Koruga, Ebe Oke, Sabine Kienzer, Michael Kienzer, Philip Lavender, Carlos Vergara, Thomas Drehr, Jörg Wohlmacher, Lars Pels, Marek Luzny, Johanna Odersky, Dieter Stampfer, Thomas Horowitz, Bernd Derwald, Kitty Bastecky, Robert Fiedel, Victoria Sveloj, Gusave Hinslein, Paula Tschira, Lilith Friedmann, Marito Nalvlot, Dana Kreuz, Audrey Locatiu, Jane Moncada, Luca Mikitz, Paul Jäper, Bertold Sedloik, Jörg Feind, Katalin, Andrais, Tobias Schubert, Axel Polaczek, Conni Vognstrup, Christian Ingemann, Woch Tür, Lena Fruchs, Hannes Heller, Martin Schlögl, Stefanie Schlögl, Eva Johnglem, Johannes Lahstener, Sam Causer, Jeremy Wade. /// Photos © David Visnjic and donaufestival
More photos: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/84314423786/carlos-maria-romero-guillaume-marie + http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/84314809806/carlos-maria-romero-guillaume-marie
Carlos Maria Romero, Guillaume Marie. 26.4.2014.Krems.Donaufestival At Forum Frohner. 15:00. Name Of All The Spectators Seperatet By Commas.
Performance
Austrian Premiere
Carlos Maria Romero and choreographer Guillaume Marie explore the theatrical moment in relation to power. Through collaborations with visual and performing artists Maria Romero has staged a succession of works that research the connection between sculpture and presence by means of situations loaded with erogenous stress. During the project a tautological operation is used to reference the materials and devices at play: humans representing sculptural representations of humans; sculptures that enact sculpture; mirrors reflecting reflection; “the voyeuristic experience of viewing” refracting spectatorship; a theatre that reflects the theatre.
Guillaume Marie: www.tazcorp.org
Soundkonzept: David González Jiménez Music playlist: Guillaume Marie
Photos © David Visnjic and donaufestival
http://www.donaufestival.at/festival-en/programm/14/carlos-maria-romero-guillaume-marie
As part of THE GREAT BIG TOGETHERNESS at DONAUFESTIVAL
KREMS
April 25 - 26 & April 30 - May 3 2014
HTTP://WWW.DONAUFESTIVAL.AT/FESTIVAL-EN/THE-GREAT-BIG-TOGETHERNESS
These seven proposals are not fixed, but rather exist as states of fermentation. The outcome is open. Highly dependent on you. And me. Most definitely WE! “What is it that we can do together that we can’t do alone.”
(Jared Gradinger)
The Great Big Togetherness shares different positions of collectivity through the lens of choreography, sculpture, sex magic, group experience, shamanism, activism, and queer theory.
As a performance maker and curator, I have been invested in ecstatic, neo-expressive, hypersensitive, actionist bodies; along with the facilitation of participatory group experiences that process play, mass dance, tantra, ritual, unconscious improvised choruse´s and future machinic assemblages. The performance and experience-making evolves from the desire for the transcendent union of the collective. Yet this ecstasy thing is tricky, creating a paradox of heightened perception through the loss of self and has intense complex political implications; one creating subordination the other liberation. Participatory practices begin to have an overwhelming presence in the art and performance world. Similar to the conflict of the ecstatic this work can either heighten attention to the power dynamics of leadership or create further subordination with the pretence that the work is at best using the audience. This discourse motivates me to further question the creation of participatory performances because I still believe and fight to maintain that this togetherness is really necessary and totally possible. Potential solutions include emergence, mediation, world making, activation, seduction, suggestion, fiction, friction, risk, not knowing together, spontaneous mass dance, care giving, and service. These performances are not about “transforming relational codes into something nicer” (Bishop). Nice is ok. But we want something deep that’s going to challenge what we become when we are together whether it feels nice or not. But if it feels nice, fuck it! “Let’s all cum at the same time” – Liz Rosenfeld! The Great Big Togetherness concerns my fascination with the highly-charged, and fragile politics of togetherness. It’s really big because possibly it’s impossible.
Liz Rosenfeld and Carlos Maria Romero question how we see and how the charged presence of a stranged erotic body creates ties that bring the audience and performer closer to one another. Together Forever with Jeremy Wade, Liz Rosenfeld and Igor Koruga is a practice in futurising notions of a collective body through the construct of marriage. AA Bronson creates a canopy of the hypersensitive, where intimacy and magic can be reciprocally transmitted. Meg Stuart offers the uber score of laughing for one hour as a threshold to a massive social ornament. Keith Hennessy preaches and teaches us into action queering ritual and collective ancestry. Finally, we are graced by the liminal presence of Protektorama, Johannes Paul Raether’s smart phone shamanic priestess, who will weave us together through the mythic and technological.
Text: Jeremy Wade
25.04.Liz Rosenfeld
26.04.Carlos Maria Romero & Guillaume Marie
26.04.Jeremy Wade, Liz Rosenfeld, Igor Koruga
30.04.-03.05.AA Bronson
02.05.Johannes Paul Raether
03.05.Meg Stuart
03.05.Keith Hennessy
Carlos Maria Romero, Danielle, Barbora, Haigop. 4.06.2015. Toronto. Art Gallery of Ontario. 19:00. Michael, Anne, Solomon, Lara, Nina, Alexia, Simon, Magdalyn, Cameron, Chris, Bojana, Leah, Paige, Amanda, Norris, Deb, Alexandra, Alice, Serge, Jf, Rasna, Nav, Paul, Nada, James, Arina, Russi, Lisa S, Jessica, Carlie, Fiona, Amalia, John, Stacey, Thurga, Sitesh, Claire, Karen, Ami, Stacey, Carrie, Nathaniel, Phons, Scott, Karen. 21:30. Simon, D'Arcy, Jo, Kevin, La Bruce, Faye, Brant, Lori, Iva, Matey, Sharlene, Alexis, Serena, Monisha, Anupa, Jordan, Leah, Laura, Karen, K. Ristin, Kelly, Phil, Joanne, Olivia, Cameron, Molly, Katrina, Katherine, Liz, Sephora, Eve, Sylvia, Lidia, James, Brian, Garfield, Jeff, Natalie, Andrea, Steph, Laura, Sheryl, Margie, Nasim, Mark, Alba, Ashley, Yasmine, Rex, Anthony.
***Metamorphosis***
On June 4, AGO First Thursdays takes inspiration from the exhibition Stephen Andrews POV, bringing together a cross-section of extraordinary local and international artists around the themes of transformation and metamorphosis.
Stephen Andrews himself presents a new iteration of his 2001 work The First Part of the Second Half at the event. The work, which quotes film conventions and seminal experimental filmmakers including Derek Jarman, Stan Brakhage and Andy Warhol, is an allegory of resurrection played out as a love story. A series of filmstrips, originally presented individually on gallery walls, are spliced together for the first time, creating an animated film with a live soundtrack.
U.K.-based Colombian artist Carlos Maria Romero presents his work Names of All Spectators, which explores the connection between the body, sculpture and the viewer, and don’t miss pop-up talks from artist Paul P. and writer and critic David Balzer (author of Curationism), offering their perspectives on Andrews’ work.
FEATURING:
* Stephen Andrews
* Harrison
* Carlos Maria Romero
* Paul P.
* David Balzer
* Meera Margaret Singh
* Karin Pavey
* DJ Produzentin and Das Hussy
* DJ Regina
Carlos Maria Romero/ Luis Garay / Guests
Walk / Explore / Perform
17 of June 2013 / 5 pm
Centro Cultural del Caribe / Barranquilla
Photo: Carlos Vergara
More photos: http://salivastring.tumblr.com/post/98944343696/carlos-maria-romero-luis-garay-invitados