Friday, December 13th, 1996 was the fourth evening of performances of Speak Easy, a text and language series at N.A.M.E. Gallery that I curated with Lorraine Moretti. The line up featured a selection of Chicago artists who use text and language as a prominent part of their performance practice, including Anna Brown, Pamela Miller, and Maureen Seaton.
From the press release:
- Anna Brown’s new text-based work-in-progress Reading my Body verbalizes a spiritual woman’s intellectual relationship with her physical form. Brown combines one part parody of and one part homage to the monologue genre, flavors the mix with a strong influence of rendzvous with a profound fortune teller, and adds sprinklings of comedy sketeches and self reflection. It’s about advice.
- Pamella Miller’s work has been described as “astounding imagery that hits between the eyes like a ton of love bricks”. Her performance poetry piece, How to Handle A No-Good Man is a humorous, feminist look at the various ways that women and gay men can cope with when men in their lives are Doin’ Them Wrong.
- Multi-award winning poet and teacher, Maureen Seaton, will read from her three books: Fear of Subways, The Sea Among the Cupboards, and her latest, Furious Cooking.
SPEAK EASY EVENTS:
- Friday, November 22nd, 1996 – Open Word Slip of The Tongue, an open mic + the opening of a comic book and zine reading room, featuring a murals by Jessica Abel, Carol Jackson, and Lisa Ormerod
- Friday December 6th, 1996 – Iris Moore, Matthew Goulish, Byron Stewart, Elizabeth Salvia, and Robert Wynkoop, PhD
- Saturday, December 7th, 1996 at 4PM – a performance poetry workshop with Byron Stewart
- Saturday, December 7th, 1996 – Doug Stapleton and Beth Tanner, Paul McComas, The Aluminum Group
- Saturday, December 13th, 1996 – Anna Brown, Pamella Miller, and Maureen Seaton