Photo Flash: Here Presents CULTUREMART, 1/7-23

The OBIE-winning HERE is thrilled to announce its annual CULTUREMART festival line-up. Running January 7 - 23, CULTUREMART makes process the focus, as the festival presents work in development from the exciting roster of the HERE Artist Residency Program HARP. This year's CULTUREMART slate features twelve multidisciplinary works that push the boundaries of dance, theater, music, new media, puppetry and visual art resulting in adventurous new forms. CULTUREMART 2011 takes place in both of HERE's theaters, the Mainstage and the Dorothy B. Williams Theater.

HERE's unique producing residency programs HARP & Dream Music commission and develop cross-disciplinary performance work through long-term relationships with mid-career artists for durations of 1-3 years. While in residence, artists have opportunities to present work during various stages of development through WIPs work-in-progress showings and more fully developed workshops during CULTUREMART, offering a vital step in the evolution of new work.

Resident artist projects seen at CULTUREMART culminate in main stage productions in HERE's season. This year's festival features 5 works by the newest resident artists, 6 works that have been seen in past CULTUREMART festivals, and 1 production by a HERE residency alumnus who is back with a new project in development. CULTUREMART alumni include Young Jean Lee, Taylor Mac, Lisa D'Amour, Faye Driscoll, Erin Orr, Collision Theory, Troika Ranch, Will Pomerantz, Corey Dargel and Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf.

HERE is located at 145 Sixth Avenue entrance on Dominick Street.
Tickets for all Culturemart productions are $15.00.
For tickets & info, call 212 352-3101 or visit www.here.org.
Photos & Videos & more at www.here.org/culturemart
*Note: where two productions are listed on the same date, it is a shared bill.

CULTUREMART 2011 SCHEDULE:

Friday, January 7 @ 8:30 PM & Saturday, January 8 @ 4:00 & 8:30 PM
WOODEN part 2: ground / Laura Peterson. Performed on a living set of grass and trees, Wooden is a quartet mirroring environmental cycles and the natural decay of structure. The rigorous physicality of Peterson's choreography collides with, wraps around, and eventually wears down an installation created from natural materials. Textured by an electric sound score, ground is the second evening-length work in the Wooden series. Performed by Kate Martel, Jennifer Felton, Edward Rice and Laura Peterson.
With support from the Greenwall Foundation, Trust for Mutual Understanding, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Swing Space Residency. Project space is donated by Capstone Equities.

Tuesday, January 11 @ 7:00 & 9:00 PM
FLOATING POINT WAVES / LEIMAY: Ximena Garnica & Shige Moriya. An installation of strings, water, real-time video projection, live electronic music and Butoh performance converge in a stunning, seamless landscape. Every motion of the dance is reflected in the surface of water, creating waves, which in turn, affect the light and projected image. Floating Point Waves immerses the audience in a mesmerizing space where the human body and basic elements fuse, evoking the interconnected nature of our world. In the end, it appears the only foothold becomes instability itself. Co-created by Ximena Garnica and Shige Moriya, artistic directors of LEIMAY, CAVE and The New York Butoh Festival, along with associate artists Roland Toledo and Jeremy Slater. With additional developmental support from CAVE, The New Hazlett Theater residency, The Silo dance residency, and Meet the Composer.

Wednesday, January 12 & Thursday, January 13 @ 7:00 PM
BOTCH / Joe Diebes. What's in a mistake? Or rather...what's in a human mistake? Unlike the dead-end result when a machine malfunctions, with human errors the mistake itself provides new information and possibilities. In Botch, transformations, decompositions and near misses come to the fore as human limitations butt up against machine precision. While performers attempt impossible tasks with microphones, loudspeakers, paper and pencils, real- time translation yields a score of flubs, where words, symbols and meaning continually mutate into pure sound and lines. With additional funding from the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by the Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, Jerome Foundation, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Swing Space Residency. Project space is donated by Capstone Equities. A preliminary workshop was sponsored by STEIM Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music in Amsterdam, and received funding from The Netherland- America Foundation.

CITY COUNCIL MEETING / Aaron Landsman. The Commissioner sucks on a lifesaver as she delivers a farewell speech after 20 years of service to the city of Bismarck. An old man in tweed dumps a bag of crack vials, used needles and dirty diapers on the table, announcing, "I found this at my grandson's playground." Someone objects to the cost of a dump truck. Someone else wants to know who owns the water. Part social sculpture, part play and part town meeting, City Council Meeting is performed participatory democracy. Borrowing tales from half-a-dozen cities where playwright Aaron Landsman sat in on government meetings, as well as improvised testimony from you the viewer, this piece imagines public discourse as art and vice versa. Arrive early and you might end up in the Mayor's chair. Arrive late and you might lose your voice. Directed and dramaturged by Mallory Catlett.

Wednesday, January 12 & Thursday, January 13 @ 8:30 PM
THE VENUS RIFF / Johari Mayfield. The Venus Hottentot, ladies and gentlemen, prodded and preserved, displayed for her "abnormal" African genitalia. The "butt" of jokes since 1800. A woman wakes up in a cage: a story from the "past." Scratch that. Here's a modern story: A woman seduces a man in an elevator. Same woman? Same story? The Venus Riff is a satirical exploration of the scientific and religious urgings to pin woman as type, species, good, evil. Twisting back on itself like Ingre's Grande Odalisque, this social critique mixes burlesque, music and movement to comment on the fall and resurrection of womankind.

TICKETS TO MANHOOD / James Scruggs. A HARP Alumnus Presentation. What makes a man a man? Is every adult male a man? In this work-in-progress, religion, imprisonment and military service are some of the themes that shape the perspectives of multicultural adult males reflecting on their rites of passage. James Scruggs returns to HERE six years after premiering Disposable Men, his critically-acclaimed multimedia one-man show. Fresh in development, this excerpt of Tickets to Manhood examines the choices that boys make maturing into men. This work is being supported by Dixon Place and will be performed in The 20th Annual Dixon Place Hot Festival, NYC, in July 2011.

Saturday, January 15 & Sunday, January 16, Installation open 3:00 - 11:00 PM
A MARRIAGE: 1 / Jake Margolin & Nick Vaughan. A woman in a cocktail dress reads into a CB radio. A fish tank is filled with suburban dreams. Two husbands read the Bible out loud into plastic bags until they are smothered by the volume of text, measured in captured breath. Then there are the tape decks... Departing from their own marriage, the artists fling a U-turn in the All American cul-de-sac, passing by the picket fence, wife and 2.5 kids, and head down back roads toward new versions of utopia. A Marriage: 1 is an installation that builds as it unwinds, spinning performance, video, sculpture, text and drawings into a constantly evolving environment.

Saturday, January 15 & Sunday, January 16 @ 8:30 PM
LUSH VALLEY / Yana Landowne, Kristin Marting, Tal Yarden. A live art interactive experience hatched by a creative team of artists and an ever-expanding community of you. Lush Valley began in April 2010 with a monthly series of public think-tanks investigating the American Dream and continues with a participatory performance involving real-time video interviews, citizenship tests, lectures and historical re-enactments. Join a common journey to reclaim this country as the home of difference. Lush Valley is conceived by Mahayana Landowne, Kristin Marting and Tal Yarden, written by Robert Lyons, and is being created with Marc Bovino, Oana Botez, Jennifer Kidwell, Irene Longshore, Rudy Mungaray, Mariana Newhard, Clint Ramos, Jane Shaw, Suzi Takahashi, and Dax Valdes. With support from NYSCA'S Individual Artists Program, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, Baruch College, NACL and Voice & Vision.

Monday, January 17 & Tuesday, January 18 @ 8:30 PM
THE STRANGEST / Betty Shamieh. Midway through Camus's classic The Stranger, an unnamed Arab is killed. Leaping from this moment and working backwards through possible histories of tangled romance, ethnic conflict and random violence, playwright Betty Shamieh has crafted a new play inspired by this unknown character. Infused with elements of Middle Eastern oral storytelling traditions and dance, The Strangest is an absurdist murder mystery about two Algerian brothers who vie for the love of the same woman. Their bitter rivalry ends with one brother being inexplicably gunned down by a French stranger. Directed by José Zayas. Additional development provided by New Dramatists with support from the Creativity Fund.

Wednesday, January 19 & Thursday, January 20 @ 7:00 PM
CHIMERA / Deborah Stein & Suli Holum. Welcome to the world of Jennifer Samuels, who has just discovered that she is her own twin. Inspired by a real-life horror story, Chimera takes you on a journey from the frontiers of modern science to the seeds of ancient mythology. Co-creators Deborah Stein and Suli Holum have launched a highly theatrical exploration of medical chimerism-the phenomenon of containing two different sets of DNA within one body-in order to explore what happens when technology shatters our ideas of who we think we are. Developed at the Workhaus Collective, the Playwrights' Center PlayLabs Festival of New Plays, and at New Dramatists with support from the Creativity Fund, and is being created with support from the McKnight Advancement Grant, and the Bush Foundation. Suli Holum and HERE are participants in the Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowships, funded by the William & Eva Fox Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group.

Thursday, January 20 & Friday, January 21 @ 8:30 PM
MIRANDA / Kamala Sankaram. Reality television and high art combine in Miranda, an original multi-media chamber opera where the musicians take center stage, singing the roles they accompany. Through an innovative mix of Hindustani classical music, Baroque counterpoint, tango, and hip-hop, Miranda explores what the word "opera" means to the modern audience. Set in the near future, this dystopic hybrid of murder-mystery and CourtTV reality show asks audiences to decide which of three suspects is a killer. With support from Meet the Composer.

Saturday, January 22 & Sunday, January 23 @ 7:00 PM
EPYLLION / Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith. A ritualistic search for the sacred in our everyday. Spirits find new homes in bodies and objects. Through puppetry, movement and voice, a world of fantastical imagery unfolds, seeping in through the senses. Performers and audience come together for a collective remembering of a story we forgot, but always knew. With support from The Jim Henson Foundation.

FREE SPECIAL EVENT AT CULTUREMART 2011:
Sunday, January 9 @ 11:00 AM
HYBRID PERFORMANCE BRUNCH.
Showcase of current & alumni Resident Artist projects.
FREE and open to the public. Reservations required.
RSVP to Producing Director Kim Whitener 212 647-0202 x309 or kim@here.org.

Hybrid Performance Brunch line-up features:

Floating Point Waves / LEIMAY: Ximena Garnica & Shige Moriya
An installation of strings and water, video, live electronic music and dance converge in a stunning, seamless landscape. In development, premieres November 2011.

Epona's Labrinyth / The South Wing
An ambulance appears in the middle of the night, carting off a woman who protests to be perfectly healthy. Her husband sets off on a surreal journey through a vast hospital, a network of constant surveillance. This nightmarish vision of modern medicine and life unfolds in South Wing's neo-expressionist style and Yokohama-based art collective Nibroll's breathtaking multi-media design. In development, premieres April 2011.

Bordertowns / Nick Brooke
A collision of recordings from the borders. Yodels, anthems, ambient sounds and fringe broadcasts are layered in perfect lockstep with seven performers. "Haunting and beautiful." - Culturebot Premiered at HERE September 2010.

Mosheh: a VideoOpera / Yoav Gal
All arts converge in this stunning original opera tracing the formation of the legendary figure, Moses. Premieres January 2011.

Lush Valley / Yana Landowne, Kristin Marting & Tal Yarden
A live art interactive experience hatched by a creative team of artists and an ever-expanding community of you. In development, premieres September 2011.