Big Art Group is a New York based experimental performance ensemble founded by Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson in 1999 . Big Art Group uses language and media to push formal boundaries of theatre, film and visual arts; it creates culturally transgressive works and innovative performances using original text, technology and experimental methods of communication. The company has produced eleven original works, including CLEARCUT, catastrophe(1999) TheBalladeer(2000), Shelf Life(2001), Flicker(2002), House of No More(2004), Dead Set #2 and #3(2006-7), The People(2007), Cinema Fury: The Sleep(2007), Cinema Fury: The Imitation(2008), and SOS(2008). In these pieces director Caden Manson invented the integrated spectacle ‘Real-Time Film’, a hybrid of film and theatre in which actors recombined formal ideas of performance through the use of simultaneous acting on stage and for live video using complex choreography, puppetry and autobiography. The company’s works exists in the contemporary stream of expanded performance, wherein traditional narratives and established performer-audience relationships have been opened up to create possibilities of innovative discovery. The work blends high and low technology, marginal and mainstream culture, and blunt investigation to drive questions about contemporary experience.
In its history, the company has grown from a small New York underground performance group to an internationally prominent and critically recognized ensemble with reviews in performance literature (PAJ, Mouvement, Theatre Heute), grants from The Jerome Foundation,The Greenwall Foundation, DNA (Andrew W. Mellon foundation and Arts International), Florence Gould Foundation, MAP Fund, étant donnés, and multiple invitations and co-productions from leading festivals and presenters of experimental performance (Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Wiener Festwochen, Szene Salzburg, PS122, Wexner Center for the Arts, DTW and the Kitchen).
Productions
1999, CLEARCUT, catastrophe!
2000, The Balladeer
2001-2004, Shelf Life
2002-2005, Flicker
2004, Empty Island
2004-2006, House of No More
2006-2008, Dead Set #2 & 3
2007, The People – Polverigi at Inteatro Polverigi (Polverigi, Italy)
2007 – Touring, The Sleep
2008 The Imitation
2008 The People – Halle at Theater der Welt Festival (Halle, Germany)
2008 – Touring, SOS
Selected Touring
CLEARCUT, catastrophe! (1999)
Kraine Theatre, NYC
The Balladeer (2000)
Kraine Theatre, NYC
Shelf Life (2001-2004)
The Kraine Theatre (NYC)2003
Pan Pan Theatre Symposium (Dublin, Ireland)
The Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN)
Fresh Terrain/PS122/UT (Austin, TX)
The Wexner Center For The Arts (Columbus, OH)
The Warhol Museum (Pittsburg, PA)
Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany)
Sommerszene (Salzburg, Austria)2004
Kaiitheatre (Brussels, Belgium)
Hebbel Am Ufer (Berlin, Germany)
Festpielhaus Hellerau (Dresden, Germany)
Flicker (2002-2005)
2002
Premiere Performance Space 122 (NYC)
Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse, France)
Festival d’Automne (Paris, France)
Théâtre de Lorient (Brittany, France)2003
The Via Festival (Maubeuge, France)
Inteatro Polverigi (Polverigi, Italy)
Zürcher Theater Spektakel (Zurich, Switzerland)
La Bâtie-Festival de Genève (Geneva, Switzerland)
De (internatonale) Keuze van de Rotterdamse Schouwburg (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
Le Vie de Festival (Rome, Italy)
SpielArt Festival (Munich, Germany)
Hebbel Theater (Berlin, Germany)
Mettre en Scène (Rennes, France)2004
New Territories Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
Emilia Romagna Teatro (Modena, Italy)
Sommerszene Festival (Salzburg, Austria)2005
In Motion Festival (Barcelona, Spain)
RED/CAT (Los Angeles, CA USA)
Teatro Central (Sevilla, Spain)
VEO Festival (Valencia, Spain)
Teatro Canovas (Málaga, Spain)
Teatro Alhambra (Granada, Spain)
Teatro La Fenice (Senigallia, Italy)
Trafó (Budapest, Hungary)
STUK (Leuven, Belgium)
House of No More (2004-2006)
2004
Performance Space 122, NYC2005
Dance Theater Workshop (NYC)
Hebbel Theater (Berlin, Germany)
Théâtre Garonne/TNT (Toulouse, France)
Festival d’Automne à Paris (Paris, France)
Le Manege (Maubeuge, France)
Le Vie de Festival (Rome, Italy)
La Rose Des Vents (Villeneuve d’Asq, France)
Wexner Center (Columbus, Ohio)
Art Rock Festival (Saint-Brieuc, France)
Festival de Otoño (Madrid, Spain)
Teatro La Fenice (Sinigalia, Italy)
Semaines Internationales de la Marironnette (Neuchatel, Switzerland)
Theatre de Nimes (Nimes, France)2006
Temps d’Image at L’Usine C (Montreal, Canada)
Festival Mois Multi (Québec, Canada)
Donau Festival (Krems, Austria)
Scene Festival (Salzburg, Austria)
Dead Set #2 (2006)
Hebbel Theater (Berlin Germany)
La Comete (Chalons en Champagne, France)
Theatre d’Angouleme (Angouleme, France)
Festival d’Automne à Paris (Paris, France)
Dead Set #3 (2007)
The Kitchen (NYC)
deSignel (Antwerp, Belgium)
Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany)
Donau Festival (Krems, Austria)
The People Project (2007 – Serial)
2007 The People – Polverigi at Inteatro Polverigi (Polverigi, Italy)
2008 The People – Halle at Theater der Welt Festival (Halle, Germany)
SOS (2008-Touring)
Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, Austria)
Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse, France)2009
Temps d’Image Festival (Montreal, Canada)
The Kitchen (NYC, USA)
REDCAT (Los Angeles, USA)
Yerba Buena Arts Center (San Fransisco, USA)
Prospettiva 09 (Turin, Italy)
Awards
2009 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship – Caden Manson & Jemma Nelson
2002 Pew Fellowship in the Arts – Caden Manson
2001 The Foundation For Contemporary Performance Art – Caden Manson
Commissions
Weiner Festwochen
Festival d’Automne à Paris
Theatré Gâronne
Maison de la Culture de Créteil
Hebbel am Ufer
Caserne Mirabeau
Teatro di Roma – Vie dei Festival
The Wexner Center for the Arts
P.S. 122
National Performance Network
Workshops and Teaching
“Framing the Actor” Toulouse, France (2004, 2006)
“Multimedia Workshop” Montreal, Quebec (2006, 2009)
“Dance on Camera” IFA Academy, Polverigi, Italy (2004, 2005, 2006)
Publications
2009 “Les Fantômes de l’Image-Amerique,” Mouvement #51, April-June 2009
2006 “Il territorio dell’indesiderabile,” Biblioteca Teatreale: Il Teatro Di Fine Millenio.
2005 “Theatre faces real-time manipulated image” Centre des Écritures Contemporaines Numeriques No. 2, April 2005
