Events at the New Museum

Big Dance Theater: Comme Toujours Here I Stand Friday, January 9, 2009 | 4:00 PM – 9:00 PM

NewMuseum.org — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:29:29 -0600

2 SHOWS: 4 p.m. & 7 p.m.

The New Museum is proud to present an advanced preview of the latest production from Big Dance Theater. A Q&A with company directors Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar will follow the presentation. PLEASE NOTE: Seating is extremely limited for both performances. We strongly advise patrons to buy tickets in advance.

Big Dance Theater's new work entitled Comme Toujours Here I Stand reinvents Agnes Varda's classic French New Wave film Cleo From 5 to 7 for the stage. Shot in Paris in 1961, the film tracks the late afternoon hours in the life of a marginally talented pop singer, as she waits to hear if she has terminal cancer. The company uses the script as a found object to create an intimate portrait of a woman shadowed by death, while still caught up in the breezy pleasures of the day: shopping, visiting, strolling. The piece serves also as a critique of the flexible and facile nature of the medium of film when set against the handmade qualities of live dance and theater.

Big Dance Theater teams up with video artist Jeff Larson to make Cleo's activities come alive via the intersection of three rolling walls and decidedly low-budget video, fracturing space to capture the agile quality of film. In a unique collaboration between costumes, set, and video, the clothes and wallpaper merge on video into one expressive medium to describe the vivid, colorful interiors of a filmic world. Big Dance Theater’s innovative use of dance as staging collides the fear of death, the minutiae of everyday life, and the beauty of a city.

The work is directed by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, with the original title song by Robyn Hitchcock.

Commissioned by the Crossing the Line Festival at the French Institute/Alliance Francaise in New York, where it will premiere in the fall of 2009. It is being developed with residency support by Les Subsistances in Lyon France, where it will be performed in April 2009.

Friday, January 9, 2009 | 4:00 PM – 9:00 PM

It’s Educational! Art Research Reading Group Saturday, January 10, 2009 | 3:00 PM

NewMuseum.org — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:32:19 -0600

Readings + Meetings + Screenings
Exploring Matters of Art Schooling and Research

Reading Group texts and conversations reflect on “schooling” impetuses in recent art and current educational trends in art practices and institutions with particular focus on the notion of artistic research.

The text for this meeting will be decided as a group on December 11 and posted here shortly thereafter.

Open to all. Repeat participation encouraged.

Saturday, January 10, 2009 | 3:00 PM

Night School Public Seminar 11: Raqs Media Collective Thursday, January 15, 2009 | 7:00 PM

NewMuseum.org — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:08:10 -0600

Night School is an artist's project by Anton Vidokle in the form of a temporary school. A yearlong program of monthly seminars and workshops, Night School draws upon a group of local and international artists, writers, and theorists to conceptualize and conduct the program. This month’s seminar is conceived by Raqs Media Collective.

*This event is free with Museum admission, but tickets are required. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Museum prior to the seminar's start.

Thursday, January 15, 2009 | 7:00 PM

Night School Public Seminar 11: Raqs Media Collective Friday, January 16, 2009 | 7:00 PM

NewMuseum.org — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:10:26 -0600

*This event is free with Museum admission, but tickets are required. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Museum prior to the seminar's start.

Friday, January 16, 2009 | 7:00 PM

Night School Public Seminar 11: Raqs Media Collective Saturday, January 17, 2009 | 3:00 PM

NewMuseum.org — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:12:06 -0600

*This event is free with Museum admission, but tickets are required. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Museum prior to the seminar's start.

Saturday, January 17, 2009 | 3:00 PM

Jean Grae + 3beanstew + Derrin Maxwell Friday, January 23, 2009 | 7:00 PM

NewMuseum.org — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:16:21 -0600

Jean Grae stands in a supremely elite class of rappers. Since her 2002 debut, Attack of the Attacking Things, she’s been making energetic, clever songs, full of humor and swagger and beauty. Described by Talib Kweli as “one of the last true MCs left,” Jean Grae enters 2009 at the absolute top of her game, coming off two stellar 2008 LPs that continue to expand her skills, her honesty, and her unbeatable poise. From collaborations with the Roots, Atmosphere, and Masta Ace to profiles on NPR and Pitchfork, Jean Grae is one of the most widely respected MCs in history, demanding praise from a vast field of admirers.

Jean Grae will be supported by the soul-inspired hip hop of Derrin Maxwell and the gritty, heavily-fried underground funk of 3beanstew.

Friday, January 23, 2009 | 7:00 PM

Naeem Mohaiemen: Young Man Was No Longer A... Friday, January 30, 2009 | 7:00 PM

NewMuseum.org — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:18:08 -0600

Naeem Mohaiemen will present excerpts from a project in progress that investigates failed 1970s revolutionary movements. This event will be a lecture where Mohaiemen presents his research tied to our present moment through personal anecdote and historical commentary. Mohaiemen is a writer and artist based in Dhaka and New York City, whose work has been shown internationally at the UK House of Lords (Human Rights Commission side-session), Berlin Transmediale, Finnish Museum of Photography, Dhaka Gallery Chitrak, Dubai Third Line and Singapore Flying Circus. He also works on activist projects around religious and ethnic minorities in Bangladesh, particularly army-occupied Chittagong Hill Tracts. Portions of Young Man Was No Longer A... is a Rhizome 2009 Commission.

Friday, January 30, 2009 | 7:00 PM