Performance is Alive Director, Quinn Dukes, interviews Renee Piechocki about her latest video collaboration, A Liberation Abecedary, inspired by Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen. Both Piechocki and Rosler's videos screen on May 13th via Franklin Furnace Loft. Piechocki is calling for participation with the project, and invites our listeners to submit a performance response. Contact Franklin Furnace to become involved!
This podcast is presented in collaboration with Franklin Furnace.
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Performance is Alive Director, Quinn Dukes, interviews multi-media artist, Jeffrey Augustine Songco. Jeffrey is an Artist-in-Residence at the Mattress Factory and premieres his installation, "Society of 23’s Trophy Game Room" on March 12, 2021. Augustine Songco discusses the challenges of being a gay, Filipino-American artist, the process of being an artist-in-residence during the COVID-19 pandemic and the creation of his own reality show.
Quinn Dukes: My name is Quinn Dukes. I'm the Director of Performance is Alive and I'm so excited to be here (via Zoom) today with a multidisciplinary artist Jeffrey who, I am going to let have the great honor of introducing yourself and tell us a little bit about where you are right now. Jeffrey Augustine Songco: Sounds great. Thanks, Quinn, my name is Jeffrey Augustine Songco and I’m actually in Grand Rapids, Michigan right now and we just got a wicked snowstorm so there's a lot of snow on the ground. Just a quick background: I was born and raised in New Jersey. My parents immigrated from the Philippines. I grew up doing ballet and musical theatre. So you know that all kind of translated into me today doing a lot of work, based on my body performing for the camera. Trying to get that role, from the casting director I didn't get 30 years ago you know just trying to get over these obstacles and traumas that I had when I was a child. Alive At Satellite
March 13-17, 2019 Satellite Art Show Austin Museum of Human Achievement, 3600 Lyons Road, Austin, TX 78702 Performance Is Alive performance space Curated by Quinn Dukes | Contact: quinn@performanceisalive.com Performance Is Alive continues to offer Satellite Art Show viewers a rare opportunity to experience bold, unapologetic and socially conscious projects through the boundless manifestations of performance art. In collaboration with Houston-based artist and organizer, Julia Claire Wallace (Creative Director of Experimental Action Festival), our live programming celebrates the work of emerging and established Texas-based artists while integrating the performance video works of a global performance community. Artists will activate our live programming with interactive performances, durational gestures, audio scoring and projection mapping. Performance highlights include Houston's seminal performance artist, Jim Pirtle’s exploration of PTSD treatments through ice, projection and multi-media. Michael Anthony García's work investigates the alienness of being a person of color while creating tulle clad sculptures to a live a cappella soundtrack. Durational performances include Christian Cruz, who will be brown and unbothered during a piece entitled They tried to bury us proverb. Sarah Sudhoff confronts the politics of breastfeeding while confronting loss and failure. Hailing from New York, Nicole Goodwin immerses her nude body in flour to examine racial identity. Also from New York, Prism House + Matt O'Hare will debut "Separator", a 40-minute multichannel video and audio composition. We are also proud to present films, experimental video and performance for camera documentation at Satellite’s official screening. Selected artists are both locally and internationally based, maintaining our efforts to merge performance communities. Among the 16 projects, our screening program features the work of award winning filmmakers, Tif Robinette + Ian Deleón (aka PULSAR) for their film, Velvet Cry, a story inspired by the 18th century hoax of Mary Toft. An unexpected character is positioned to execute karaoke in Ryan Hawk’s video, Sweet Surrender. Jessica Yatrofsky and NY FEM FACTORY’s video stars Lil’ Touches performing the story of a scorned woman “calling out” a former lover in Cunt Keeper. Award winning artist, Chun Hua Catherine Dong’s, The Sign explores the visual culture of shame in relation to the body. LIVE PERFORMANCES BY Christian Cruz (Dallas, TX), Serap Erincin (New Orleans, LA), Michael Anthony García (Austin, TX), Nicole Goodwin (New York, NY), Prism House + Matt O'Hare (New York, NY), Henry G. Sanchez (Houston, TX), Jim Pirtle (Houston, TX), Sick Din (Brooklyn, NY), Sarah Sudhoff (Houston, TX), Antonius-Tin Trung Bui (Houston, TX), Julia Claire Wallace (Houston, TX) SCREENINGS Christie Blizard (San Antonio, TX), Charles Chace and Ginger Wagg (Carrboro, NC), Chun Hua Catherine Dong (Montreal, Canada), Tif Robinette + Ian Deleón (Gainesville, FL), Kiyo Gutiérrez (Guadalajara, Mexico), Ryan Hawk (Houston, TX), Pei-Ling Ho (New York, NY), Manuel López (Daimús, Spain), Jenna Maurice (Denver, CO), Maryam Nazari (London), Alison Pirie (Brooklyn, NY), Rocha & Polse (Barcelona, Spain), Natacha Voliakovsky (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Jessica Yatrofsky and NY FEM FACTORY (New York, NY). Full schedule here. BROAD SENSE: Interviews and Event Recap
Marshall, North Carolina By Quinn Dukes @quinndukes Last October, six artists from across the United States were welcomed to the picturesque mountains of Marshall, North Carolina by curators and performance artists, Alice Vogler and Vela Oma for their multi-experiential event, Broad Sense. I was delighted to receive an invitation to perform in Broad Sense despite the NYC stress cyclone I was managing at the time. I knew it would be a logistical challenge but the promise of nature, crisp air and performing with a group of artists that I have known and respected for years was irresistible. So, I fled NYC. Flight delays led to nearly missing my rental car pickup but I successfully retrieved my car and drove two hours to a magical place in the middle of nowhere. The next morning, I awoke to the sounds of event preparation and artist discussions of material, performance site location and politics. Collectively, the 6 of us (Sandy Huckleberry, Jeff Huckleberry, Joseph Raven, Phil Fryer (Moondrawn), Coorain Devin and yours truly) performed across multiple locations on the 7-acre property for 9 hours. After Broad Sense concluded, I reached out to Vela, Alice and all participating artists to preserve the event's memory from multiple perspectives. Performance art documentation typically counts on visual documentation but in a campfire discussion, we realized that our collective memories write the history of performance. It was a beautiful weekend of local community exploring unknown paths in sporadic rain showers to discover durational outdoor actions. I am pleased to share the event through the words of the artists and thoughtful curators. From my experience, the time period prior to a live performance includes intentional times of reflection and often ritual. Pre-performance time is sacred. Non-performers can often feel alienated and confused when trying to engage. The truth is, most of us just need to do, our own thing. But what is... that thing? What are y/our pre-performance rituals? I thought this was a perfect topic for our first #PerformanceIsRevealing Series. Throughout this series, we will pose unique questions to current performance practitioners as a way to archive and share y/our practice.
My pre-performance rituals involve days of replaying the performance over and over and over again in my mind until I can actually reach a half-way point. I never see the end of the performance but you better believe I know the color of the room, the smell and my proximity to the audience. I also like to scour Home Depot or Art Supply stores for inspiration and never buy anything. I am pleased to begin this post series with three artists well known to the Performance Is Alive community: Ernesto Pujol, Kara Rooney and Christopher Unpezverde Núñez. I hope you enjoy the series and consider revealing your process with us too. -Quinn Dukes Our community continues to grow with the addition of Luke Mannarino to our correspondence team. Luke is a Brooklyn-based performance artist, writer and facilitator with a curiosity for the human/technology relationship and passion for LGBTQ activism. We discussed the local performance community and subtlety of performance writing in our interview conversation here. Please help me welcome Luke to our global community! I hope you enjoy learning about Luke's live art perspective. - Quinn
Each fall, the streets of New York City (more specifically 14th Street) are injected with a higher and more concentrated dose of public installation and performance art via Ed Woodham's grass-root initiative, Art In Odd Places. Curated by performance artist and curator, Katya Grokhovsky, this year's festival and corresponding exhibition exclusively features female identifying artists. After reviewing the largest number of applications ever received in the organization's 14-year history, Ed and Katya spoke with us about AiOP's exciting history, the necessity for reclaiming public space and the decision to focus on the (female) BODY. It is a great honor to share our discussion with you here and stay tuned for the incredible list of participating artists for AIOP 2018 BODY. - Quinn
Last December, artist and writer, Alexandra Hammond asked the visitors of Performance Is Alive at Satellite Art Show, "What Keeps You Up at Night?" It was a pleasure to witness the piece in it's full 3-hour duration. Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to participate in the conversation because there was never an empty spot at the "campfire!" I came up with a cascade of responses as I simultaneously eavesdropped and welcomed our guests. What keeps me up... planning art fairs, worrying about artists traveling internationally, posting on PIA... I'm sure you can create a laundry list of your own and I hope you do in comments! Luckily, the dutiful ethnographer transcribed her conversations of which I am pleased to share with you here for our latest Artist Feature. - Quinn Dukes
Performance is Alive brings yet another ambitious, 4-day performance art program to Miami Beach for Satellite Art Show. This year's program features interactive performances, durational works, a panel discussion with slumber party, performance video screenings, lectures and because performance is never entirely predictable, the unknown! PIA artists are encountering the complexity of migration, oppressive patriarchal constructs, trans identity, mental health care, silencing, race relations and many other human rights issues threatened by the Trump administration. So join us for the only non-stop performance art uprising during Miami Art Basel! #AliveAtSatellite #notbasel #performanceisalive
You may have noticed a new name for the Performance Is Alive correspondence team when we published "ARTISTS IN HOPE: A SOFT POLITICAL DISSENT" by Polina Riabova. I first met Riabova at one of Fritz Donnelly's infamous performance events at BIZARRE Bushwick. We spoke casually about the Brooklyn performance community as live performers slung chocolate sauce all over themselves, the venue and anyone in their path (you know, normal performance stuff.) Months later we picked up our conversation at Grace Exhibition Space where Riabova expressed an interest in writing about performance. Intrigued by her poetic approach and fresh immersion into performance art, I found Riabova to be an apt addition to the site. In our interview, Riabova explains her relationship to writing, immigration and highlights a few standout performance pieces. - Quinn Dukes
It was Friday night in the East Village and I decided to give Colby Cannon Welsh’s performance, "Millennials," a shot. I was not previously exposed to Welsh’s work but his flashy email invitation and direct invite caught my attention.
Upon arrival, I was herded into the brown brick lobby of the historic NYC Public Bath Building, now known as Bathhouse Studios. Two women holding iPads asked the crowd who wanted to give their phone numbers as a way to participate in the performance. They entered our anonymous digits into a Google form and later handed us a small piece of paper with instructions to leave our ringers on and place the call on speaker upon answering. REVIEW: THE SICK ROSE AT PULSAR - CLAPPING, PROPS AND CONTEXT
By Quinn Dukes PULSAR is the performance programming brainchild of Ian DeLeón and Tif Robinette (Agrofemme). Monthly PULSAR events run out of a black box space adjacent to the Catland Bookstore on Flushing Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The spirit and bounty of performance art in Brooklyn is explosive right now. I have been invited to more events in the past month than all of 2010 combined. It’s staggering, wonderful and allows for experimentation. Performance artists present their work on rooftops, restaurants, lofts, galleries… you name it. These events are often followed by late night parties, occasional fires and electoral candidate bash sessions. What does not seem to be following the same path of enthusiasm however is the shared dialogue, critique and conversation about the performances. All too often, an artist performs, a 5-10 minute break happens and then we (the audience) are thrust into the narratives of a new artist. This practice is not at all uncommon. Live music venues stack the bill, as do comedy shows… but I wonder, how does the abundance of viewership without analysis or conversation alter the effectiveness or memory/remembrance of the work? If the performance reaches me on an emotional and/or visceral level- I am more likely to recall it - but this is merely a function of our neurological mapping. (Richard Sieb, “The Emergence of Emotions,” Activitas Nervosa Superior, 2013) Initiated in February 2016, PULSAR was birthed out of an interest to integrate live artists - linking practitioners of sound, dance, experimental theatre, choreography, performance and beyond. Curators DeLeón and Robinette seek to initiate conversations about the performances presented at PULSAR and the place of performance within our current socio-political environment. In collaboration with INCIDENT Magazine’s David LaGaccia, DeLeón and Robinette began publishing a podcast to share (and archive) discussions related to PULSAR performance programming. On the evening of May 20th, my first PULSAR experience began from across the street of the venue. I watched as a woman dressed in a Victorian white costume presented an offering to passersby. As I drew closer, performance artist Charmaine Wheatley asked me, "Do you want to take a bite." I looked down at the object presented on a silver platter and was informed that it was a dark chocolate mold of her ass. Interview with Carlos Martiel By Quinn Dukes This year performance art pervaded Miami Art Week 2015 (for better and for worse). Most notably at the non-traditional, multi-destination, Satellite Fair organized by Brian Andrew Whiteley and the curatorial project "Time Sensitive" curated by Jesús Fuenmayor at Pinta Miami. As you can imagine, the sheer density of events, shows and performances prohibited us (Alexandra Hammond + myself) from being able to view the full performance roster at either fair but we were determined to catch Carlos Martiel's durational work at Pinta Miami. Martiel caught my attention last October for his durational performance, "Segregation" at Samson Projects (Boston) where he stood motionless between two layers of barbed wire. Upon entry, audience members were separated by country of origin and viewed the performance from opposing sides. Martiel notes on his website, "One of the entryways permitted the entrance of U.S. born whites and Europeans. The other, permitted the entrance of blacks, latinos, asians, and middle easterners, as well as any individual who was not European or U.S. born white. People were not allowed to mix for the duration." Similar to "Segregation", Martiel's arresting performance at Pinta Miami offered viewers an opportunity to deeply contemplate personal and political freedom both as an individual and within a larger, social contstruct. As a former pupil of Tania Bruguera, his performance philosophy should come as no surprise - but I find Martiel exceedingly daring - willing to acknowledge and face consequence. This is no easy feat within commercial performance/performer relationships. Following his Miami performance (Dictadura), I reached out to Martiel to learn more about his pre-performance preparations and post-performance insights. I am honored to share our conversation with you as a part of this week's Artist Feature. -Quinn Dukes QUINN DUKES: What led you to create Dictadura? CARLOS MARTIEL: At first, when I was invited to make a performance work for PINTA in Miami, I wanted to do a project that had a relationship with Cuba, given the number of Cuban exiles who are in this context, most of whom were fleeing Cuba from the current political regime. During the research process for the project, however, I decided to include a larger number of countries in Latin America that have also had some form of dictatorial regime just like the case of Cuba. But unlike Cuba, the vast majority were supported by the School of the Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. In the United States, many people have no idea about the history of Latin America, or the macabre role the United States played in inflicting pain to the Latin American family, with its foreign policy of transforming Latin American military apparatuses into one of torturers, murderers and dictators. It was because of this that I created the project. I remained still, retained by the neck to a steel collar bolted to the base of a flagpole, forced to stare at the alternating flags of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, where dictatorial regimes have had support in some form by the School of the Americas. Each flag was placed for an hour and in historic chronological order, just as if the dictatorships were happening in real time. QD: How did you prepare for the durational aspect of the piece? CM: I really don’t have particular rituals for the preparation of my work. Usually I try to spend an hour alone, before making my performances, but it's not something I can always do. I believe that no preparation is sufficient to deal with the types of works I engage with, the challenge is actually at the time the work is presented in real time and the strategies that you develop internally as the work is happening, for example, careful breathing to avoid discomfort, uneasiness or tingling so that I stay focused. QD: Stillness and duration are commonly core elements to your performances. What draws you to these two methods? CM: I grew up in a society that lives on the edge in many respects, an island surrounded by water, people who endure a lot of financial hardships and even complete lack of basic needs, but must continue to live one way or another and not give up. This has influenced much of the durational aspect of my work. I have also studied and I am very familiar with African cultures and rituals of initiation, where one has to test the physical and psychological limits of the initiates. I believe that we should approach as much as possible to our limits, because only from there life can be seen through different eyes, and perhaps felt with a different kind of skin. QD: Where there any challenges to performing in the context of an art fair? CM: This was my first time participating in a fair doing a performance. It is a difficult experience because some people involved in organizing such events do not understand the nature or dimensions of a performance. For example, they wanted to reduce the performance which was suppose to last 21 hours, divided into seven days, only to three days for economic reasons ... I did not allow that to occur. If one wants to keep an initial idea and be consistent with what one is proposing, you have to be very firm. The relationship with the audience is also very different. I was surprised for example that people came to my performance and took selfies like if the performance was something to hang on a wall like a painting. QD: How did you connect with Pinta Miami? CM: I received an invitation by curator Jesús Fuenmayor to participate in his “Time Sensitive – Pinta Projects”. QD: I see that you have presented performances across the globe. In your experiences thus far, does the reception of your work change per location? Can you offer a few examples? CM: My work does not go in one direction, it is a fluid experience that changes depending on where I live, but also changes depending on the context where the performances take place. I think change gives richness and variety to my work, and better enables me to avoid common clichés. For example, on several occasions I have worked with the theme of emigration and immigration, but I address these topics from different perspectives each time. In Cuba, I made “Where My Feet Do Not Reach” in which I was interested in the idea of traveling through the subconscious of people who could not leave the island. For the Liverpool Biennial, I performed “Horror Vacui,” in which I dealt with the same issues from the point of view of the immigrant who is to assimilate into a different culture. In this context, I sewed onto my skin different parts of a classic English suit. In “Simiente,” a work I performed in Chicago, I wanted to unite in one body the blood of different immigrants living in Chicago, a city that has a large population of immigrants, but all segregated. QD: Is your practice exclusively rooted in performance? If so, what brought you to this methodology? CM: For the time being, I am working with my body and the possibilities that it brings as living matter. I am open to work with other media but it depends more on the ideas than a specific practice. For example, while I was living in Cuba in early 2007 I made a series of drawings with my blood. I would go to public clinics and ask the nurses to draw blood from me, clandestinely, so that I could use it in my work. Sometimes the nurses would refuse or they would not retrieve an adequate quanitity of the blood that I needed for my drawings so this created a big frustration for me. One day, I realiized that time and the body are extrememly important elements for the type of work I wanted to realize and so I decided to make my first performance. Since then, I’ve been working with the body and performance as my practice. QD: Are their any current performance practitioners that inspire you? CM: I really do not receive inspiration from performance artists, I am moved by the reality around me, I am inspired by human contradictions, social problems that I cannot believe have not been resolved yet like immigration, police brutality, racism, to just mention a few... I am inspired by writers like Eduardo Galeano or singers like Mercedes Sosa and Lola Flores. But I do think that there are perfomance artists whose work I find attractive given the content and the vivacity of the work. For example, Paulo Nazareth, Tania Bruguera, Regina Galindo, and Santiago Sierra. Special thanks to Martiel's translator: Jorge Sánchez images from Carlos Martiel's performance Dictadura at Pinta Miami, 2015. // images courtesy of Q. Dukes
Interview with PPL (Esther Neff and Brian McCorkle)
By Quinn Dukes The summer is quite possibly the busiest (and liveliest!) time for performance artists. Across the globe, performance festivals, fairs and live-art series awaken the heat-hazed city streets. This weekend Time, Body, Space, Objects continues its programming on Spectacle Island (Boston, MA) with works by PPL, a Brooklyn-based performance duo (Esther Neff & Brian McCorkle). I am excited that PPL is a part of the TBSO4 roster this year, especially considering the performance location. I reached out to PPL to learn more about their upcoming performance concepts and am delighted to share our conversation with you below. Enjoy and head out to Boston this Saturday, August 22nd! - Quinn Well hello world! Today embarks the beginning of a new venture in performance art. My name is Quinn Dukes. I am a New York based performance artist, activist and curator. I have viewed powerful performances from artists based around the world. My viewing experiences are largely due to the incredible curatorial efforts of Jill McDermid at Grace Exhibition Space, Brookyln, NY. The performance art community emerged in the 1960's during a radical time in art history. These performances are heavily documented and readily available for emerging artists and academic scholars. During my time in academia, I have come to realize that institutions struggle to keep up with performance artists working TODAY. This site is intended to share the names and work of influential performance artists working today, around the world. Performance is Alive. If you find yourself in New York, make sure to check the calendar for Grace Exhibition Space!
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CONTRIBUTORSIan Deleón Archives
July 2023
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