Please join me at 8:30PM, Sunday November 10 + Monday, November 11 for REDCAT Studio, featuring new works and works-in-progress by Ironstone + Jordi, Kite, Jenna Moroni, Davia Spain, Kayla Tange, and Kristina Wong, which I guest curated with Sebastian Hernandez.
Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT)
631 W 2nd Street,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
REDCAT, CalArts’ downtown center for contemporary arts, is a multidisciplinary center for innovative visual, performing and media arts founded by CalArts in the Walt Disney concert Hall complex in downtown Los Angeles.
Studio, REDCAT’s quarterly program of new works and works-in-progress highlights new forms of dance, theater, music and multimedia performance in a wide-ranging evening that celebrates the vitality of LA’s artists making work for the stage. Performances include:
IRONSTONE + JORDI
She Is Trying To Be Born
Dancer and choreographer Ironstone’s dance triptych, She Is Trying To Be Born maximizes the potential of the body by playing with gendered movement to challenge the fluid intersections of expression and identity. With an original composition by Afrofuturist genderfuck transchannel Jordi, Ironstone celebrates the queer family that asks, Can our othered existence in this anti-sexual era make us gatekeepers of love?
KITE
Pȟehíŋ kiŋ líla akhíšoke. Her hair was heavy.
In a sonic sculpture performance, Oglála Lakȟóta artist Kite manipulates a hair braid interface (a computer on a 50-foot braid of hair) to control sonified AI-generated texts in Pȟehíŋ kiŋ líla akhíšoke. Her hair was heavy. Lakȟóta ontology is an already-established way of being, where seemingly ‘inanimate’ objects can be alive with spirit. This performance is an experiment in greeting that spirit.
GENNA MORONI
a space devoid of matter
Using highly visceral and textured movement, choreographer and dancer Genna Moroni’s duet a space devoid of matter subverts recognizable tendencies in form by intermixing strength and vulnerability as it wrestles with the dichotomy of beauty and “ugliness.” Raw, physical and unapologetic, this dance finds its expressive power in the unoccupied space of female relationships.
DAVIA SPAIN
Dawning
Combining ambient, acoustic, downbeat, and other electronically manipulated sounds, performance artist Davia Spain’s Dawning uses experimental sound and movement to create an intimate space in which to unfurl autobiographical stories and fictional realities that explore Afrofuturist concepts of non-linear time, healing practices, and the alienation experienced by humans who have been marked as “other.”
KAYLA TANGE
Dear Mother
Using unconventional practices to investigate the feeling of cultural limbo, performance artist Kayla Tange’s solo Dear Mother investigates sexuality, ritual and cross-cultural upbringing as a Korean adoptee growing up in a Japanese American family. This work is inspired by the journey of defining identity, researching ancestry and examining the politics that caused her and several other Korean children to be put up for adoption since the 1950s.
KRISTINA WONG
Kristina Wong For Public Office
Set against a hand-sewn set, Kristina Wong’s latest work, Kristina Wong for Public Office, is a simultaneous real run for public office and a riotous performance art piece on America’s current political condition. The artist and real life local politician scathingly deconstructs the theatrics that inspire campaigning and civic participation, providing insight on American voting history and the future for women of color in democracy.
REDCAT Studio is funded in part by generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts.