Jan 4, 2016

Big Dance Theater has had a profound impact on the New York performing arts scene since its establishment in 1991, challenging the boundaries of the form and pioneering a new level of hybridity. Co-Artistic Directors Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar have used the medium of dance to explore the relations between the various art forms, referring to histories of performance, film, literature, and music. Rather than accepting the limitations implicit in the categories of dance and theater, the company has instead chosen to embrace both, feeling out a style that is simultaneously highly-choreographed drama and theatricalized dance. To watch a Big Dance performance is to enter a dream-like world in which seemingly disparate languages, sounds, costumes, sets, and motions are interwoven in an intr... Read On

Dec 18, 2015

Please consider making a contribution here today to make innovative programs possible at The Kitchen as we celebrate our 45th anniversary. And view artists' projects below that your support made possible in 2015! Dear Friends,  As artists give a new shape to art, so it is that we try at The Kitchen to give new shape to an organization that might house it--and in a city and time vastly changed from our beginnings in a Soho loft. In fact, time and again we hand our entire building over to artists, from Ralph Lemon and Chantal Akerman to Trajal Harrell and Tina Satter. And often our entire team, from curators and technicians to the box office, is involved in dialogues with artists attempting to develop a new chapter not only for their own work, but also for the ways in which th... Read On

Dec 15, 2015

Harold Budd took a moment in the airport on the way to New York to speak with Assistant Curator and Archive Manager Katy Dammers about his performance tonight as part of our Synth Nights series. Tonight Budd’s performance with Jane Maru and Bradford Ellis draws on poems from a new volume titled Aurora’s Tears that will be released by Heavenly Monkey Press in February 2016. Katy Dammers: Much of the poetry in the show comes from Aurora’s Tears to be published by Heavenly Monkey Press. What themes are you exploring in that book?Harold Budd: I spent the last year and a half as an invalid because I had broken my hip and my ribs in an auto accident. So writing was my only outlet. I started getting in a dream state and began writing again. It started out very simply: I was going to m... Read On

Dec 10, 2015

Sophia Cleary and Samara Davis, creators of Penis, spoke with Curatorial Fellow Alessandra Gomez in anticipation of their upcoming performance as part of Synth Nights featuring Champagne Jerry, Tami Tamaki, and Penis. Alessandra: Can you provide a brief summary describing the creation of Penis? Penis: The day after I got some bad news, Sophia came over and spent the day with me. We watched the Punk Singer and decided we wanted to start a band. The idea was kind of a joke—we didn’t know how to play any instruments and weren’t sure if we’d ever actually follow-through with it. Our friend, Neal Medlyn, suggested we call the band “Fecal Penis.” It somehow didn’t feel right, but at the suggestion of our best friend Joseph Teeling, we dropped the “Fecal” and became “Penis.” We operated a... Read On

Dec 2, 2015

Choreographer Tere O’Connor spoke with Assistant Curator and Archive Manager Katy Dammers about his new piece The Goodbye Studies premiering at The Kitchen this week. O’Connor reflects on the complexity of his newest piece and its construction through deep relationships with his collaborators.  Katy Dammers: I was struck by some moments in your work where the dancers collectively offer what I interpreted as moments of grief or fear. In what seems to be a growing presence of terrorism, news coverage frequently depicts reactions as collective gestures—whereas in your work I saw twelve different experiences. How have you been working on that in this piece? Tere O’Connor: I feel like I’m talking about the current situation on earth, with a focus on groups of people in absolute ... Read On