PROTECT THE PEACE

For over a decade, PTP has cultivated a storied and unrelenting energy of experimentalism within sound and performance—releasing work by artists ciphering between hip-hop, other electronic music, poetry, noise, and hardcore, like Dreamcrusher, YATTA, Dis Fig, Devin KKenny, amani, Rena Anakwe, Kepla & DeForrest Brown Jr., Swaya, and more.

PTP forges narratives both sonic and visual. Its vision takes physical form as cassettes, CDs, vinyl records, paper ephemera, artist books, and garments, considering how design can be entangled with liveness as much as with research, memory / recall / sampling, language, and a political dialogue. The group’s principles of peer support and legacy-building extend to PTP Archival—an alliance of media makers committed to counter industrial history-telling by producing programming and materials in service of conscientious cultural preservation.

At The Kitchen at Westbeth, PTP presents an evening of performances and collaborations by artists CENTENNY GZZZ (Dreamcrusher + KING VISION ULTRA), Dawuna, YATTA with LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, and more friends. A site-specific paint-based installation by brandon king (aka subt.le) and V Tineo (V), alongside projections of archival media and video, temporarily occupies the walls of The Kitchen’s loft space as a component to the performances that riffs on lineages of counter-culturalism.

As a future echo of the program, there will be a physical release of PTP’s recent compilation RESIST COLONIAL POWER BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY in a limited multi-disc (CD) format with casing designed by GENG PTP and a booklet by Xena Brar of Battle Jester / Secret Riso Club. This historic compilation, engineered by GENG, is a collaborative declaration against genocide and global occupation, featuring 100+ artists contributing to 95+ tracks who encapsulate the sonic universes within PTP’s orbit. Pre-orders will be available on-site during the program, and online via Bandcamp.

PROTECT THE PEACE: we, INSURGENT is organized by Angelique Rosales Salgado, Curatorial Assistant.

ACCESS NOTES

Warning: Please be advised some performances contain strobe lights, fog / haze, and high-pitched rhythmic frequencies. Ear plugs are encouraged and will be available at the door. Artists will engage in live painting throughout the space during the performances, utilizing non-toxic, zero-VOC paint. Entry: Late entry is permitted at anytime dependent on capacity. There are stairs or ramp access to an open door marked with The Kitchen's name, behind which there is an elevator accessible to the public. The elevator enters directly into the loft. Warning: Seating: This is a standing performance with no fixed seating, and visitors are encouraged to move throughout the space. Limited, intermittent seating is available via gallery benches or folded chairs in the space. We are happy to accommodate and adjust for individuals who require wheelchair access upon request. Duration: The program run-time is about three hours total. Audiences are welcome to come and go. Exits: Our restrooms and dressing rooms are gender neutral. At present the ADA bathroom is under construction in the loft space. An ADA bathroom is available for our guest use in the courtyard, just one door down at Greenwich House Center for Older Adults. This bathroom will be available from 5:45-6pm. Please visit the facilities before entering the elevator to the loft.

If you have any questions specific to access needs please contact boxoffice@thekitchen.org if you require additional support.

How To Get To 163 Bank Street: It is a ~10 minute journey on foot and a ~5 minute car ride from both the 14th Street A/C/E subway station (the station has elevator access) as well as the 14th Street 1 train subway station to Westbeth. It is a ~5 minute journey on foot from the M20 bus stop of 8 Av/Bleecker Street and a ~10 minute walk from the Christopher Street Path Train Station.

BIOS

Xena Brar is a multidisciplinary designer and producer based in Brooklyn, NY, focusing on art direction + print, event, web, and production design. Aside from graphic design, what passes the time is metal working, risograph printing with their small press Battle Jester, printing for Secret Riso Club, throwing reggaeton parties and producing events. They are currently at Something Special Studios.

Dawuna is a Ugandan-American experimental black music practitioner from Virginia. His music is primarily informed by the American canon of Black Music (Marving Gaye, Nina Simone, Prince, D'Angelo, etc), but also draws influences from the wider span of diasporic African art. As his live practice evolves to incorporate more elements of avant-garde performance, he finds himself using tape decks in increasingly unconventional ways within the context of Black Music. This evolving live practice is increasingly distinct from his recorded music, which includes releases like ‘Southside Bottoms’ and ‘Glass Lit Dream,’ the latter having been called a "masterpiece" by The Guardian.

A writer, vocalist and performance/sound artist, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of Village (Coffee House Press 2023), TwERK (Belladonna, 2013) as well as the co-editor of Coon Bidness. Diggs has presented and performed at California Institute of the Arts, El Museo del Barrio, The Museum of Modern Art, and Walker Art Center and at festivals including: Explore the North Festival, Leeuwarden, Netherlands; Hekayeh Festival, Abu Dhabi; International Poetry Festival of Copenhagen; Ocean Space, Venice; International Poetry Festival of Romania; Question of Will, Slovakia; Poesiefestival, Berlin; and the 2015 Venice Biennale. As an independent curator, artistic director, and producer, Diggs has presented events for BAMCafé, Black Rock Coalition, El Museo del Barrio, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the David Rubenstein Atrium. Diggs has received a 2020 C.D. Wright Award for Poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Art, a Whiting Award (2016) and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship (2015), as well as grants and fellowships from Cave Canem, Creative Capital, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, among others. She lives in Harlem and teaches part-time at Brooklyn and Barnard College.

Dreamcrusher is a New York City-based musician and artist, who describes the project as 'nihilist queer revolt musik.' Dreamcrusher’s work is at once personal and abstract, revealing and antagonistic; performances and recordings shift between genres while subjecting the characteristic elements—melodies, beats, instrumentation—to distortion until the point of transformation. Dreamcrusher has released dozens of recordings with labels such as PTP, Fire Talk, and Corpus, as well as on Bandcamp and other online platforms. Dreamcrusher is also a member of the duo CENTENNY GZZZ with KING VISION ULTRA.

CENTENNY GZZZ is Dreamcrusher + KING VISION ULTRA. Please enjoy the music. Thank you.

brandon king (aka subt.le) is a multidisciplinary artist, from the Atlantic Ocean by way of Hampton Roads VA, who creates installations exploring African Diasporic identities, honoring his ancestors’ stories through archival and found materials, sound collage, painting, film, and other forms. his practice generates pathways to acknowledge and alchemize harms committed to disrupt despair, to equip and strengthen past, present, and future generations. king is a founding member of Cooperation Jackson, a cooperative network in Jackson, Mississippi. brandon is based in NYC and is currently an MFA candidate at Queens College focusing on Social Practice and Installation. he is also a member of the New York City based artist collective PTP.

GENG PTP is a Manhattan-born, Queens NYC-based sound practitioner (poet, producer, DJ, audio engineer), educator, archivist, visual designer, organizer, and physical trainer. With 3+ decades of participatory roots in NYC's underground music/DIY communities, he has been making work through a multitude of solo and collaborative processes. Most currently, he performs as KING VISION ULTRA (est. 2017), a multimedia project considering memory and voice as quantum weaponry in relation to honoring/making/taking space, sampling from the archive (recall/remembrance), and spirit channeling. In January 2023, he released his fourth album as KVU, 'SHOOK WORLD,' featuring 16 collaborators + Algiers (Atlanta, GA). He also makes up half of CENTENNY GZZZ, a duo with Dreamcrusher.

GENG's organizing and coalition work expands to the visionary collective and label, PTP (Protect The Peace fka Purple Tape Pedigree), which he established in 2009. PTP operates in spaces as "counter-industrial purveyors of weaponized media and information.”

V Tineo (V), a versatile artist from New York with roots in the Dominican Republic, expresses through painting, sculpture, printmaking, and installations. Themes of home, family, body, and society thread their work, creating powerful narratives. Currently pursuing a master‘s at Queens College, V’s art captivates with diverse forms and meaningful concepts.

YATTA (aka ricky sallay zoker) is a Sierra Leonean-American vocalist, producer, and composer. Characterized by textural electronic sounds, looped vocals, and rooted in improvisation, humor, and surprise, they have a playful, intuitive approach to sound and performance. Over the years, they have shared stages with artists like Beverly Glenn Copeland, Laraaji, and The Sun Ra Arkestra, creating multimedia performances that tour nationally and internationally. They have released two albums with PTP and presented installations + performed at Les Urbaines, MOCA, Roulette, The Kitchen, RedCat, MOMA, The Tate, and The Getty. They received their MFA at Bard College and are a former artist-in-residence of Pioneer Works, Elsewhere Museum, Otion Front, and Flux Factory.