Nathan Davis, Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly, Armory Show
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First broadcast February 12, 2010
Hosts Pete McCabe of HERE Arts Center and AIR's Beatrice Johnson speak with
collaborative performance artists Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly of The Moving Theater and composer and percussionist
Nathan Davis of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) about Armory Show, their multimedia, interdisciplinary work that took place at the Park Avenue Armory in February, 2010. They discuss the multifaceted elements of the piece and the intended effects of its labyrinthine conception and presentation, as well as the backgrounds and collaborative dynamics of its contributing artists and performers.
Well known for its vast drill hall, Park Avenue Armory also houses a
suite of exuberant period rooms described by the New York City
Landmarks Commission as "the single most important collection of
19th-century interiors to survive intact in one building." As their
18-month residency at the Armory nears an end, Gerard and Kelly take the audience through these
landmark rooms to reflect on the complex military and social history
of the space, as well as their artistic and personal experience
working there. The work combines choreography, text and video, and
features new music works composed by Davis, Du Yun and Mario Diaz de Leon, performed live by the acclaimed International
Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) (53 minutes).
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Margot Farrington
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First broadcast January 29, 2010
Margot Farrington reads three of her poems and talks with Peter McCabe about the role of silence in poetry and the poet’s intent versus the reader's interpretation. They discuss Castor And Pollux At The Hack Stable, a poem that veers toward tragic premonition yet makes a passionate plea for how the persistence of myth makes us more human. Host and poet touch on recurring generational differences through the ages, the question of the erasure or survival of myth in a fast-forward world and the necessity of the crucial "look back" that makes new work possible.
Margot Farrington is a poet/performer pursuing both traditional and experimental paths. As poet/storyteller/performer (separately and in combination), she has appeared at such venues as Poets House, EMPAC at RPI (Wow & Flutter Festival), The West Kortright Centre, and The Tenement Museum. She has worked as poet-in-residence with college students, school children, prison inmates, and others for more than two decades. She is author of two poetry collections, and her work has been anthologized. She was a Norton Island Fellow in 2009 (31 minutes).
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Jen DeNike, Scrying
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First broadcast January 22, 2010
Scrying, a "non-narrative performance ballet" that was performed as part of PopRally's event series at MoMA on January 12, 2010, marks something of a formal departure for Jen DeNike, who typically deals in video and photographic media. Many of her consistent artistic motifs--explorations of sexuality, gender, spirituality, power, movement, the human form--are still present in this work, and here she, choreographer Melissa Barak and dancers Grace McLoughlin and Lucy Van Cleef discuss the piece. Joanna Agnelli, the daughter of medium Jackie Barrett, both of whom worked closely with DeNike regarding conversations about Scrying, provides greater insight into the stimuli behind the work's creation. The ballet is dedicated to Barrett and artist Damien Echols who inspired the project. Also included is some disembodied audio of the performance itself (24 minutes).
DeNike spoke with Michael Rush during PERFORMA09 about this piece and Twist, her PERFORMA contribution here.
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Experimental Troupe Comedy (ETC)
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First broadcast Oct. 23, 2009
Will Corwin with members of Experimental Troupe Comedy aka ETC: Chrisopher Chan Roberson, Jamil Ellis and Gene Perelson just in advance of their special Halloween 2009 gig at 8 p.m. at People's Improv Theater (The PIT).
These guys met on Ms. Sheinman's Speech and Debate Team at Stuyvesant High School 15 years ago. E.T.C.: Experimental Troupe Comedy is the result of that friendship, and I never would have imagined they still be going at it as I sat in the Jefferson Market Library screening room 14 years ago--I also never imagined I'd have a radio show either, but enough about me. For those who are curious about the inner workings of the Comedy scene--getting a gig, the differences between stand-up comedians and sketch comedians (stand-up comedians are angrier), how to deal with bad audience suggestions in improv, these guys explain it all. They also talk a bit about the scene and how ETC is transforming it via the Internet. Adopt-a-black-baby.com comes up a lot (33 minutes).
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Radio Purgatory: The Renaldo The Ensemble
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First broadcast October 16, 2009
Tipped off by our friends at 3-Legged Dog we invited the members of The Renaldo The Ensemble up to our studios for what turned out to be a musical romp with flashes of spontaneous revelation and the ongoing threat of slapstick. Led by guitarist/singer/writer and chief visionary Aldo Perez, the session also features singer/clarinetist and clown Jenny Lee Mitchell, drummer Matthew Talmage, toy percussionist Richard Ginocchio, tuba player Matt Muszynski, keyboardist Jonathan Roberts, and director Barry Goldman.
In this segment the group performs excerpts from their Fall 2009 production of Radio Purgatory (at Dixon Place, check that schedule). The play is a sort of absurdist neo-noir radio circus and mystery drama. We also hear some music and bits from their ongoing show at The Living Room (their Halloween night show is recommended), and tracks from a new CD release Why Are You? which mixes indie-rock with Latin, opera, murder, intrigue, and advertising (42 minutes).
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Bargaining, A Love Story
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First broadcast August 31, 2009
Playwright Kellie Powell makes minimal use of sets in order to refocus the dramatic tension of her works on the power of dialogue to express the more primal and integral of human emotions. AIR’s radio production of Bargaining further removes her work from the spatial limitations of the theater. Absent of the physical, but deeply in-tune with the reality of human emotion, this is an ideal arena for the play, where feelings, thoughts, and music reign supreme.
Bargaining is a drama of love and loss, exploring universally human themes of devotion, impermanence and forgiveness through the trope of immortality. When Ryan, 25, proposes to his girlfriend, Hannah, she shocks him by telling him that she has been 23 since the year 1954. Ryan’s love for Hannah leads him not only to believe her, but accept her offer to make him immortal, that they may keep one another company for the rest of eternity. The play traces their relationship with an attuned intensity that allows it to further examine notions of love and mortality.
Act 1 is 41 minutes. Act 2 is 37 minutes.
Kellie Powell – Writer
AIR, ARTonAIR.org – Executive Producer
Ava Rosenblatt – Director, Producer, and Narrator
Amanda White – Actress (Hannah)
Ross Iosefson – Actor (Ryan)
Shane Thorn – Composer
Additional Music:
Gotta Start Somewhere, performed by Bottle of Justus, written by Frank Powell
Finding Our Way in the Night, performed by The Mad Cowboys, written by Frank Powell
Opportunity, performed by Running from Right, written by Seth Gorden
Jeannie Hopper – Recording and Editing
Elliot Stapleton – Additional Engineering
Theo Cusick – Production Assistant
Caroline Carberry – Production Assistant
Special Thanks to Alanna Heiss, Beatrice Johnson, David Weinstein, Seth Gorden, Frank Powell, Free Sound Archive
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Messa di Voce: Jaap Blonk, Joan LaBarbara and Zachary Lieberman
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First broadcast February 20, 2009
AIR's David Weinstein speaks with Jaap Blonk and Joan La Barbara, who together with Tmnema created Messa di Voce. The two master vocalist/composers and an artist/engineer discuss their ongoing collaboration and the 2009 North American Premiere of Messa di Voce in New York. Plus some spontaneous ghost whispers and glottalalia.
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The Archery Contest
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The Hotel Savant and Performance Space 122 present The Archery Contest, a radio play written and directed by John Jahnke. Soundscape by Kristin Worrall. Sound Installation by Andrew Schneider. Setting by Peter Ksander.
Setting: A cemetery.
(By) the rectory near a gate.
(Which leads to) the stream in an orchard.
Time: None.
Characters:
The Reverend Kendrick: Richard Toth
Mercy, his wife: Hillary Spector
Orpha, a girl: Carey Urban
Dory, a boy: Ryan Colwell
The Sexton Hawthorn, their Guardian: Ryan Justesen
This abstract sex comedy follows the amoral exploits of five players
trapped somewhere between the churchly rules of the past and the
anarchic chaos of the future.
Set amidst the death and headstones of a decaying cemetery, The Archery
Contest follows a Reverend and his wife in their pursuit of a young girl
and boy in a competition to claim them as secondary spouses. The
contest's challenge, and the fate of each player, can only be met when
new liaisons are formed, old lovers are scorned, and restrictive
inhibitions are severed forever. Encouraged by the children's guardian,
the amorous chase reaches its climax during the celebration of a
decadent and ritualistic summer festivity.
A studio recording of Part 1 debuted online at Art Radio WPS1.org
on November 1, 2007. Part 2 was recorded live in performance
at PS122 before making its online debut, and Part 3 appeared in 2008,
following The Hotel Savant's premiere of Antonin Artaud's The Cenci, at
The Ohio Theatre.
The Archery Contest is an ongoing multi/media theater project whose goal
is to embrace modern technology, especially the internet, as of means
disseminating theatrical content to a larger audience.
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Song for New York: What Women Do While Men Sit Knitting
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First broadcast October 8, 2007
This recording of Song for New York: What Women Do While Men Sit Knitting, a site-specific work from Mabou Mines, was made during a preview at The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church on March 28, 2007.
At the heart of the performance are five poems - one for each of the five boroughs that make up New York City - written by five female poets, each with a deep connection to a specific borough. The poems morphed into song lyrics and were set to music by Grammy winner Lisa Gutkin.
Song for New York was created for Mabou Mines by:
Director/Conceiver - Ruth Maleczech
Composer - Lisa Gutkin
And the Poets:
Maggie Dubris (Manhattan)
Karen Kandel (Queens)
Migdalia Cruz (The Bronx)
Patricia Spears Jones (Brooklyn)
Imelda O'Reilly (Staten Island)
The Yarns - by Nancy Groce
Anselm Berrigan is Artistic Director for The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, now in its 41st season, furnishing encouragement and resources to poets, writers, artists and performers whose work is experimental, innovative, pertinent and offers fresh aesthetic, cultural, philosophical and political approaches to contemporary society.
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Max Blagg Live at CBGB's
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First broadcast May 8, 2006
On March 31, 2006 Max Blagg read a selection of vintage and new poems to an overflown crowd at CBGB Lounge, (some of whom seemed to be drinking rather than listening, in true CBGB style), following a screening of Pat Ivers' and Emily Armstrong's amazing video compilation, Nightclubbing; live performances from 1979-81 by various artists - including Dead Boys, Bad Brains, The Voidoids, John Cale, and Blagg -, which was shown as part of Downtown: NYC 1974-84, produced by NYU at Grey Art Gallery and the Fales Library (January-March 2006). Poet/artist/activist Blagg is also co-host with Glenn O-Brien of Bald Ego Online, available in the AIR Archive (26 minutes).
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Downtown for Democracy
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This classy evening of fiction and poetry readings by a stellar lineup of writers was actually a fundraiser staged by Downtown for Democracy, a liberal, political action committee dedicated to mobilizing the New York creative community to use its influence in support of
progressive candidates. AIR does not take political sides or advocate specific candidates. But the readings were so good, and the
occasion so historic, we felt you should hear what some of the writers among us have to say.
Part 1 features Salman Rushdie, Jennifer Egan, Paul Auster, Lou Reed, Susan Sontag, Jonathan Franzen and Dave Eggers, with introductions by Jonathan Safran Foer. Recorded at the Cooper Union, New York, March 25, 2004.
Part 2 is an evening of readings recorded in April at the Cooper Union in New York, with Wendy Wasserstein, Joyce Carol Oates, Gary Indiana and more.
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Downtown for Democracy: A Joyful November
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Oh say can you see? The stars! They came down - Downtown for Democracy, that is. ("D4D" is the choice political action group of the arts.) The acclaimed playwright and comedienne Lisa Kron (Well, 2.5 Minute Ride, 101 Humiliating Stories) organized this September 21, 2004 benefit at The Cooper Union's historic Great Hall in New York. With fellow emcee, Lucy Sexton (wearing nothing but stiletto heels and a big red peace sign on her pupic), she introduces this stellar evening of story, song and dance.
In Order of Appearance:
Lisa Kron (with Richard Move channeling Martha Graham)
Lucy Sexton
Terre Roche
Lynne Cheney Players (Maggie Moore, Carmelita Tropicana, Saidah Arrika Ekulona)
Will Power
Lou Reed
Laurie Anderson
Bill T. Jones
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Fence Magazine: Readings at The Kitchen
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First broadcast November 7, 2005
Fence, the nonprofit journal and book publisher, curates an evening of idiosyncratic and challenging readings by four poets: Geraldine Kim, Laura Sims, Aaron Kunin and Forrest Gander. Rachael Dorsey of The Kitchen introduces the evening's host, Fence founding editor and publisher Rebecca Wolff. Recorded for WPS1 on October 18, 2005 at The Kitchen Center for video, music, dance, performance, film and literature in New York (72 minutes).
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A Jackie 60 Christmas with "War of the Worlds"
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New York nightlife impresarios Chi Chi Valenti and Johnny Dynell created the collaborative producing organization, The Jackie Factory at the legendary Jackie 60, and currently produce dozens of events a year in venues that range from The Coney Island Mermaid Parade to the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue.
The team presents their own, inimitable version of War of the Worlds with vampish Jackie Christmas favorites, the Dueling Bankheads (Clark Render and David Ilku), vocal legend Deborah Harry, Method great Hattie Hathaway, special appearances by Alba Clemente and DJ Jeannie Hopper, and of course the great Empress Chi Chi herself. This very special holiday edition includes musical selections by International Chrysis, Kiki & Herb, Blondie and the club land holiday classic Frosty The Cokewhore, performed by the Dueling Bankheads.
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Live at the Clocktower: The Civilians in Gone Missing
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First broadcast July 4, 2005
The Civilians, one of downtown New York's most acclaimed new theater companies, develops original projects based in the creative investigation of actual experience. Using methods that combine documentary and artistic practices, the company creates engaging shows that illuminate the interplay between the personal and larger social phenomena. This performance was recorded at WPS1's Clocktower gallery space on May 16, 2005.
Both documentary and musical cabaret, Gone Missing was created by the company based on interviews with real people. The piece is directed by Steven Cosson with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman and additional text by Peter Morris. Performed by six actors who play over 30 characters, Gone Missing uses actual stories of lost and found things that tread the line between fact and fiction and celebrate the extraordinary in the every day. Most of the stories follow the thread of a lost thing such as mundane objects that have become invested with great importance - a ring, an Agnes B. scarf, a sock doll named Sniffle. Other losses are more unexpected like a sudden inability to remember words, or a husband's head left in the sidewalk garbage.
THE CIVILIANS PRESENT GONE MISSING
Created by the Company
Written and Directed by Steven Cosson
Music and lyrics by Michael Friedman
"Interview with Dr. Palinurus" by Peter Morris
Sound design by Ken Travis
Based on interviews with actual persons in and around New York City
Performers:
Maria Dizzia
Michael Esper
Trey Lyford
Jennifer R. Morris
Brian Sgambati
Alison Weller
Andy Boroson, piano
Richard Huntley, drums
Ernest Adzentoivich, bass
SONGS
Gone Missing - Company
The Only Thing Missing Is You - Alison Weller
La Bodega - Michael Esper and Company
Hide & Seek - Maria Dizzia
I Gave It Away - Maria Dizzia, Jennifer R. Morris, Alison Weller
Ich Traumt Du Kamst An Mich - Brian Sgambati
Lost Horizon - Trey Lyford
Etch a Sketch - Jennifer Morris and Company
Stars - Company
Gone Missing was developed with the participation of contributing writer Winter Miller; performers Damian Baldet,
Quincy Bernstine and Matthew Francis, assistant directors Isaac Butler and Jonathan Spector; choreographer Philip
Horvitz; Anne Kauffman and Kris Kukul. Voices of Teri and Dr. Palinurus: Nina Hellman, T. Ryder Smith.
Teri's Theme composed by Andy Boroson.
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Night Nurse: A Radio Mix by Barb Stanek
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First broadcast May 29, 2006
A product of the high period of FM underground radio of the 60s and 70s, Barb Stanek produced an irreverent must-hear free form show on Chicago's WJPC. This set, from her personal stash and rescued from an old audio cassette, would never have passed FCC mustard. It is explicit, politically incorrect, and full of nastiness and it displays her acid humor and brilliant editorial touch. A real show. With Marianne Faithful, Nichols & May, Paul Simon, Mose Allison, and others. (43 minutes)
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