Big Art Group in the NYTimes.

Big Art Group’s work with media is featured in an article in the New York Times about companies that have been working in and with media and their relationship with the pandemic performance practices happening today. 

SOS

In Print: Doubleness on the New York Contemporary Experimental Stage: Bodies and Technology

Big Art Group is discussed in depth in the new article, “Doubleness on the New York Contemporary Experimental Stage: Bodies and Technology” by Emeline J. Jouve. The article can be read in French or In English.

“Doubleness on the New York Contemporary Experimental Stage: Bodies and Technology” explores the representations of bodies in a corpus of plays by New York artists from the “New American Avant-Garde.” Intermediality, or the co-presence or superimposition of different artistic media, creates dual bodies: technological monsters that are half-human and half-video, grotesque minotaurs at once men and puppets. A “place for viewing,” theatre, theatron, is turned by artists into a showcase displaying post-human bodies. To what extent does the use of technology annihilate or magnify the physical presence of the actor, the traditional soul and raison d’être of the art of the theatre? To answer this question, this paper focuses on works by the pioneering Wooster Group (1975-), the eminent Big Art Group (1999-) and the new rising star of the New York experimental scene, Andrew Schneider (2015-). I develop the concept of doubleness in order to define the nature of the interactions between bodies and technology in the various shows of the artists. – extract from the Transatlantica website

You read the article at this link – > https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica

Imagined Theatres

In Print: Imagined Theatres: Writing For The Theoretical Stage

Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson are published in this anthology of hypothetical performances written by nearly one hundred leading theorists and artists of the contemporary stage.

“What Could We Build, or Is the Future Already Behind Us?: A Forum” – Big Art Group published in Yale’s Theater Magazine

Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson have been published in Yale’s Theater Magazine. They were part of “What Could We Build, or Is the Future Already Behind Us?A Forum” during Prelude15 Festival along with David LevineDavid ConisonRyan McNamaraAlexandro Segadeand Tom Sellar. Available online at Duke Journals.

“For the 2015 Prelude festival, held at New York’s Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, cocurator Antje Oegel and I wanted to think about architecture in two ways. First, we invited artistic leaders of New York’s newest theater buildings—Performance Space 122 and St. Ann’s Ware- house—to present their plans to an audience of artists and professionals. We wanted to know why these structures were going up and what the ideas were behind their designs. We talked about how they would (ostensibly) contribute to the urban ecology and what opportunities they might o er artists and audiences.

For the second part of this initiative, we invited a handful of hometown theater makers to imagine ideal architectures for future performance: anything from a building to a technol- ogy, a public assembly or any other kind of structure. They presented their projects live and in a modest exhibit—and a spirited discussion ensued. Is architecture about more than just buildings? What’s the use of utopian fantasies like this—are they essential nourishment in a city dominated by commerce, where culture easily becomes another commodity? Was the curato- rial prompt a form of entrapment for artists who prefer to work around limitations and come up with something real? What did these artists’ thought experiments reveal about the creative needs of the city when placed next to the building projects actually going up in the metropolis?” – Tom Sellar

 

In Print: The People in Danish Teater1 Magazine

theater1

Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson spoke with Mette Garfield, co editor of the Danish Theater Magazine Teater1, on the occasion of Big Art Group’s performances of THE PEOPLE – LES at Abrons Arts Center in New York. In the article and interview Big Art Group discusses the performance of democracy, contemporary tragedy, and Big Art Group’s use of technology in participatory live events.

“Its not high tech or low tech, its me and you tech” – Caden Manson

After Spectacularity published in Theater Magazine

Click to access theater_spec.pdf

In Print: Big Art Group’s THE PEOPLE – L.E.S. Featured in Exeunt Magazine

© Grant Shafer

© Grant Shaffer

“New York-based performers Big Art Group came home to Abrons Arts Center this month, with their show The People, an experiment in democracy-building as only this adventurous, tech-savvy company could imagine it.”

Click here to read the full article. http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/with-democracy-and-theater-for-all/

In Print: Big Art Group’s BROKE HOUSE featured in Artpress

Jennifer, Parker-Starbuck. “Le Théâtre Cyborg.” Art Press 2.25 (2012): 85-91. Print.

Big Art Group’s latest production, Broke House, is featured in Jennifer Parker-Starbuck’s article, Cyborg Theatre, published in the current edition of ARTPRESS.

“Big Art Group develops work that challenges notions of American cultural identity; their characters move through scenarios that cannot be divorced from their technological surroundings. Broke House is a Chekhov for the twenty-first century; a biting mediation on an eroding nation symbolized by the deconstruction of the skeletal frame of the characters’ house over the course of the show”  – Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, Artpress

In Print: Big Art Group included in “My Screens Are Killing Me, or Watching Hurts” by Sue-Ellen Case published in Theater Magazine

Pictured Jeffery Rose, Rebecca Sumner Burgos, Cary Curran

Sue-Ellen Case, Distinguished Professor and chair of the doctoral program in theater and performance studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, has included Big Art Group in her article “My Screens Are Killing Me, or Watching Hurts.” in the current Theater magazine 42.1. In the article she discusses the the genealogy of spectating violence on stage and the feminist critic built into several pieces.

“They Reveal how the body and a film are coproducing one another – what Jason Farman has described as a dialogic relationship between the real and virtual body.

Case, Sue-Ellen. “My Screens Are Killing Me, or Watching Hurts.” Theater 42.1 (2012): 21-31. Print.

In Print: Jemma Nelson and Caden Manson included in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art’s 100th Issue

Jemma Nelson and Caden Manson are included in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art’s 100th issue.  Performance makers in New York we’re asked to write essays in one of three thematic groupings; Belief, Being Contemporary, Performance & Science, and Writing & Performance. Mr. Nelson and Manson’s essay can be found on pages 57-58. Others asked to participate are Mac Wellman, Richard Foreman, Barbara Hammer, Yvonne Rainer, Joan Jonas, Robert Wilson, RoseLee Goldberg, and Richard Schechner.

You can download the kindle version here –>
PAJ 100 (January 2012) – Performance New York (PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art)