BROKE HOUSE at Abrons Arts Center NYC April 6-22, 2012
Broke House (New Group Work)
Abrons Arts Center (NYC)
466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street)
New York, NY 10002
April 20, 2012 8:00pm
April 21, 2012 8:00pm
April 22, 2012 7:00pm
Broke House is a new group performance from Caden Manson / Big Art Group and follows a narrative about the residents of a house and their hanger-on, once a documentary filmmaker arrives to capture their lives. On a skeletal set webbed with video cameras, the characters try to recall their given roles as inevitably the foundations of their dreams collapse, and they are thrown into the desert of their own futures. Part comedy, part ritual, part love spell.
The Performance explores the process of construction, when that process becomes sharply interrupted by historical events, and dissolves into the shapelessness of an aftermath. Those processes that were “building” previous to the play’s beginning include a life, a family, architecture, or a system of beliefs, an economy of values, and the creation of the performance itself. But when events intervene— events like collapse, upheaval, disaster, abandonment, forgetting, fear, and strife— all the raw materials and the players themselves become deformed into a new formlessness, and enter a transitional state of potentiality. Like the pause loop in a video game, Broke House takes place in this marginal time zone.
Like all of Big Art Group’s works, Broke House offers our meditation on the current states of America, which we believe have been in flux for at least as long as our ensemble has been up and running. Beyond the topical symptoms of foreclosure crises, credit crises, occupy movements and extremist rhetoric, we suppose that the metaphorical heart of the country has been suffering, and perhaps has decided to rebuild the body that surrounds it.
“True to their name, Big Art Group’s performances are big in every possible way: prismatic visuals hurtle across a panoply of screens, dazzling with flashing colors; strange conjunctions of video imagery captured live by a battery of cameras and spliced together in real time, ambush the eye; digital soundscapes thrum, groan, and roar at synesthesia-inducing volumes.” – Jacob Gallagher-Ross, The Drama Review
Press from the January Showings:
Editor’s Pick in Flavorpill http://flavorpill.com/newyork/events/2012/4/6/big-art-groups-broke-house
Interview in Culturebot http://culturebot.net/2012/04/13035/big-art-groups-broke-house-at-abrons-arts/
Write up in ARTFORUM http://artforum.com/diary/
Critique by @performaddict http://bit.ly/wCV32v
NYTheater Review http://nytheatre.com/Show/Review/brok14337
Write up in Design Envy http://bit.ly/yhJ68p
Write up in Performance Club http://bit.ly/ApXO2b
Images from Jan 2012 Showings and Rehearsals:
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Company
Big Art Group is a New York performance ensemble using language and media to push formal boundaries of performance, digital media and visual arts creating culturally transgressive works using original text and technology. Big Art Group’s diverse ensemble explores, develops and produces innovative new performances. The company has produced eleven original works. and in its eleven year history, the company has become a nationally and internationally prominent and critically recognized ensemble with publications in major journals, PAJ, Theater, TDR, Theater der Zeit, Theater Heute and co-productions with Festival d’Automne, Vienna Festival, Hebbel am Ufer, Le Vie de Festival, Wexner Center For The Arts, MAC Créteil, Théâtre Garonne, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. bigartgroup.com Twitter: @bigartgroup
Credits:
Created by Caden Manson, Jemma Nelson, Big Art Group
Direction and Scenography by Caden Manson
Sound by Jemma Nelson
Assistant Director Kathleen Amshoff and Bradley Kal Hagen
Performed by David Commander, Nicholas Gorham, Heather Litteer, Willie Mullins, Matthew Nasser, Edward Stresen-Reuter, Rebecca Sumner Burgos
Lighting Design by Hillery Makatura
Production Manager Ana Mari de Quesada
Sculpture Caden Manson and Jeffrey Ralston
Video System Design by Caden Manson and Jared Mezzocchi
Video System Tech Dan Hansell
Interns Simone Serlenga and Dries Vandrope
Broke House is produced by Big Art Group with support from King’s Fountain and NYSCA
Supported by James Davison, Desi Santiago, Ted Henigson, theARTcorps, Ryan Davis, Alan Cumming, joan Raspo, Drew Brody, William Lynn, Julie Tolentino, Hill Family, Ivan Gothner and Betsy Davison, Alyssa Fannick, Robert Litteer, Jen Parker-Starbuck, Sean Pierce and Lucy Pierce and Theo Kogan, paul gardner, John Issendorf, Grant Shaffer, Jill Emerson, Brian Bauman, Amy Sadao, Mambo Movers, Ryan Sorkin, Linsey Bostwick, Mikeah Ernest Jennings, Ilaria Mancia, Hillery Makatura, Justin Vivian Bond, Davis Freeman
Thank You to Barbara and Henry Pilsbury, James Davison, Culture Hub, Abrons Arts Center and Staff, American Realness Staff and Crew. Diane White, Theo Kogan and Sean Pierce, Nathan Carrera, Sean Bumgarner, La MaMa, La Galleria, and SpankArtMag.com
Bios:
@CadenManson #cofounder @BigArtGroup bigartgroup.com #curator #editor @pformart contemporaryperformance.or
#JemmaNelson #cofounder @bigartgroup bigartgroup.com #writer #painter #SoundDesigner #teacher #cinematographer #published #TheaterJournal @TheaterHeute @Mouvementrevue
#KathleenAmshoff #assistantdirector @bigartgroup #director kathleen.amshoff.com #upcomingwork swellshow.org #womencenterstage
#DavidComander @MouthCommander #writer #performer #director #showswithdolls #12yrswithbigartgroup #onyoutube #onvimeo #nowebsite #findmeonFaceBook
#AnaMarideQuesada @adqnyc #GeneralManager thewildproject.com #FreelanceProductionManage
#NicholasGorham #actor #performer #artist #creatorofthespectrumartsp
@Dan_Hansell #lightingdesigner #backstagetroll #draftsman #computeraddict #worldtraveler #politicsarguer #loveroffastfood #loverofbadjokes
#HeatherLitteer @redrabbitnyc #Actress #PerformanceArtist #Chanteuse Film #RequiemForaDream #BalladofBettiePage #IntheCut #NewTwenty. #DanceSingle #Apokalips #Curated W.O.(e).R.D. #LegendJackieFactory heatherlitteer.com
@HilleryMakatura #TechnicalDirector @BigArtGroup #TechnicalDirectorActorsSt
@JaredMezzocchi #VideoProgramsDesign @BigArtGroup #MediaDesigner @ThreeLeggedDog #MultiMedia_Director&Desig
#WillieFarradMullins @FarradMusic #actor #singer #dancer #songwriter #popstar #farrad.com #leftbrainrightbrain #makingmoves #peaceandlove
@MattNasser #actor #singer #director #filmmaker mattnasser.com #curator @lamamagalleria #performanceartist #companymember @LaMaMaETC #singleandlooking #availableforhire
#JeffreyRalston #VisualArtist #Teacher #CoProducerandDj xanadudenyc.wordpress.com #InstallationsandLighting spankartmag.com #Lighting mistersaturdaynight.com
#RebeccaSumnerBurgos #PerformedWith @Carmelita Tropicana #Chicas2000 #MemberOf #DazzleDancers #ChillingSocialRealist #CocoFrio #VoicedActed #CocoFusco #IncredibleDisappearingWom
#EdwardStresen-Reuter #actor #filmmaker #editor #photographer #formergapmodel @neddershred
