Press Room

Works by a diverse group of artists, from pop artist to Bessie-award winner, will be presented

New York, NY (September 14, 2012)

Risk + Reward, MAD’s signature performance series dedicated to expanding the possibilities of performance within a museum setting, will return to the Museum of Arts and Design this fall with an exciting roster of practitioners. Running from October 5 to December 21, 2012, the series will feature a diverse group of artists working in performance, from Arturo Vidich, who will interact with commissioned objects from other artists in his piece, to pop performer Zebra Katz, who will expand his investigation into the musical connection between performance and spectacle. Among the works presented are seven world premieres commissions including works by Rebecca Patek, Liz Santoro, MPA, and Legacy Russell.

Risk + Reward continues MAD’s dedication to and celebration of contemporary creation, challenging structure and simple categorization. Structured not only as a platform for the presentation of new performance pieces, Risk + Reward, reconsiders the museum as a center to support the vital process of developing bold and risktaking works through residencies, rehearsals, and critical dialogs.

Series performers include:
•Zebra Katz, renowned for his hit “Ima Read,” that became a YouTube
hit after it was prominently featured in Rick Owens’ fashion show in
Paris last spring.
•MPA, who presents visceral work that includes drawing, photography, installation, and collaborations, among them a performance with artist Emily Roydon at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2010.
•Rebecca Patek, of her recent performance of her work “Real Eyes” at
The Chocolate Factory, The New York Times praised her monologue as “both precise and musical.”
•Gwen Welliver, Bessie-award winning dance, choreographer, and visual artist whose work investigating anatomy, gender, age and sexual orientation has recently been presented at Center for Performance Research, Dance Theater Workshop, the 92nd Y Harkness Dance Festival, Bennington College, and Movement Research at the Judson Church.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Risk + Reward is organized by Jake Yuzna, Manager of Public Programs.

Gwen Welliver and Arturo Vidich are presented through a partnership with New York Live Arts.

All performances will be held in various locations inside the Museum of Arts and Design.

$15 General, $10 MAD Members and Students with Valid ID unless otherwise indicated.

PERFORMANCES

You and I of the Storm
By Rebecca Patek
October 5, 6, 12
8:00 pm
Starts at Lobby and continuous Theatre, Galleries, 7th Floor
World Premiere

You and I of the Storm walks a line between comedy and contemporary dance. Within the formal structure of stand up, Patek uses caricature and satire as vehicles to start a critical discourse.

Commenting on the art world’s clichés, power structures within society, unexamined social mores and the underlying psychological pathologies of American culture, You and I of the Storm utilizes physical vulnerability to reveal the absurdity of a logic derived from sickness. Patek stretches the latitude of acceptability within performative art, asking the public to look at the origin of their aesthetic values in relation to moral judgment. The work seeks to create a theatrical context for reevaluating our assumptions about identity, the idea of right and wrong, good or bad, and the ethics of creative endeavor.

In her performance, Patek will lead the audience through a guided “tour” throughout the museum’s theater, lobby, gallery, and event spaces.
Through which, she will examine commonly held “goals” for the creation and exhibition of art and performance.

The Daedalus Effect and other dilemmas
By Arturo Vidich
November 9 and 10
8:00 pm
Theatre
$5 Suggested donation

Drawing from the mythical persona of Daedelus, inventor of the labyrinth where he was subsequently imprisoned with his ill-fated son, Icarus, Vidich provides micro-commissions to artists, performers, writers, engineers, architects, and others to make or design objects to be used as improvisational scores for a solo performance.

Like puzzle pieces, molecular combinations of the objects generate physical dilemmas that prompt strings of full-body gestures. Vidich interacts with the objects as though they are animate, evoking warmth and playfulness tinged with danger and deceit.

Vidich building objects in the Museum lobby in October during Museum of hours for public viewing.

Vidich will rehearse this piece at MAD in October and November. Open Rehearsals will take place between 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm on the following days, all open rehearsals are free with Museum admission and always free for Members:

October 2, 3, 4, 9 and 11, 2012
November 6, 7, 8, and 9, 2012

Watch it
By Liz Santoro
November 16, 17, and 18
8:00 pm
Loading Dock and 58th St (between Broadway and 8th)
World Premiere

How do we receive attention and how do we give attention? What drives it, what distracts it, and what dissolves it? In Watch It Liz Santoro proposes a work that brings to light what draws us to watch others and what this indicates about us as observers. Using the loading dock of the museum, this intimate performance shares with and takes from the audience while simultaneously proffering and demanding attention.

Closed. Curtain. 2 parts cinema
By MPA
November 30 and December 1
8:00 pm
Theatre
$10 suggested donation
World Premiere

going blank before your very
dropping out from under your
too short to reach
at the end
keep the tempo

3 performers plus director. One flattened climax.

Beasts and plots
By Gwen Welliver
December 6, 13, 15, and 20
3:00 – 5:00 pm
Theatre
Free for Members or with Museum Admission

In partnership with New York Live Arts, MAD presents Gwen Welliver’s work-in-progress, Beasts and plots, as a series of open and closed rehearsals. Observe the research and development of this new movement work, scheduled to premiere at New York Live Arts in April 2013.

The pastures
By Gwen Welliver
December 6, 5:30-8:30pm
December 13, 5:30-8:30pm
December 20, 5:30-8:30pm
Lobby

The pastures is an image-based improvisation exploring full-body portraiture via movement performance and drawing. Figurative and nonfigurative approaches to gender, age and sexual orientation in real
and fantastical forms will activate a myriad of scenes and images.

Participating artists will include: Reid Bartelme, Julia Burrer, Beth Gill,
Jake Meginsky, Kayvon Pourazar, Stuart Singer, and Gwen Welliver. Special guests and audience interactions are to be expected.

Into the Black House
By Zebra Katz
December 14
8:00 pm
7th Floor

Expanding his practice into the pop music arena, Brooklyn based artist Zebra Katz has emerged as a fresh new model for contemporary performance practice. His single “Ima Read” merged hip-hop lyrics on education (of the academic and dance floor variety) with minimal beats to stunning effects. Utilized for Rick Owen’s Fall 2012 runway during Paris fashion week, featured in clubs across the world, and spreading across Facebook timelines and Gchat windows with dizzying speed, this work has presented Katz with sudden, startling notoriety.

By entering into the pop world, Katz continues a legacy of performance artists who have utilized this industry to push not only the possibilities of fine art, but that of sound and performance. For his newest commission at MAD, Katz will explore this dynamic further by organizing an evening long performance investigation. Through reading, movement, beats, and collaboration, Katz will transform the architecture of MAD into a laboratory for the continued evolution of the pop spectacle, underground music, and performance.

Initiation
By Legacy Russell
December 20 and 21
7:30 pm
Lobby
Free with Museum Admission, Always Free for Members
World Premiere

Choreographed by New York artist and producer Legacy Russell, Initiation enacts three moments of initiation within contemporary Western culture. Fostering experimentation between private and public social gatherings, Initiation will reconstruct the actions of preparing for shared rituals: whether dressing for a birthday party, graduation, funeral, or evening on the town. Placed in close proximity, these milestones simultaneously reflect and deflect one another, calling into question the cultural value of each. In this way, Russell examines how social rituals come to define our sense of appropriateness in public and private gatherings.