In Print – Essay by Big Art Group in the Book, Performing Politics: Political Art After The 20th Century

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Big Art Group essay “After Spectacularity”  by Jemma Nelson and Caden Manson has been published in Theater der Zeit’s new book, Performing Politics: Politisch Kunst machen nach dem 20. Jahrhundert. The Book is in German and can be purchased from Amazon

Is there a return of politics in the arts?  And if so, what does it mean to make political art, whether in theater, performance or painting? In the last decade, many experiments in the arts have showed a new interest in questions of the political, “Politics” and political intervention – all left over from the twentieth century and its catastrophes. This edition of Theater der Zeit features essays from Big Art Group, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Philippe Quesne and more.

In Print: Big Art Included in “New Theater, New Media: Theories and Practices of Theater and The Digital.”

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Big Art Group is included in “New Theater, New Media: Theories and Practices of Theater and The Digital” just released by the publisher Franco Angeli in Italian (Milan) by Anna Maria Monteverdi with an introductory essay by Oliviero Ponte di Pino.

“The book illustrates the most interesting experiments related to the use of audio-visual technologies in live performance and video theater from the eighties to the interactive multimedia experiments of recent years. In the third part of the book some interviews with international artists (Antunez Roca Marcel.lí; Konic THTR, Roberto Paci Dalò, Big Art Group, Builders Association; Jaromil).”

Party Pics From Last Night’s Holiday Performance Blow Out!

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A big art thank you to everyone that came out last night! We had such a good time performing with our friends. Thank you to Matthew Nasser and Eastern Bloc for hosting us. Thank you to the Big Art performers; Heather Litteer (I will never think of santa clause the same again), FARRAD (turned us out!), Nicholas Gorham ( A very dark christmas carol [Channing] ), and David Commander (action toy Chekhov and the messiest gogo every, I think I still have goo on me). Take a look at the gallery below and check out our online (anti-Kickstarter) fundraiser. Our next group work, Broke House opens in NYC Jan 5th at the American Realness Festival.

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The People – SF Tableaux #2, Terrorism and Democracy Interview Videos

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Below is the second Tableaux built by the phenomenal preformance community in San Francisco followed by the final 4 interview videos on Terrorism and Democracy.

4 Channel Tableaux screened during the Iphigenia’s Monologue of The People – SF. Made by local SF performers during the workshop Hybrid Bodies the week before the performance. Participants included Atosa Babaoff, Ben Randle, Beth Grossman, brian gibbs, christine marie, DIA vergados / DIAmanda Kallas, Ernesto Sopprani, Evan Johnson, Honey McMoney, Justin Morrison, Kate Elswit, Kevin O’Connor, Laura Arrington, Malinda Trimble, maryam rostami, Mica Sigourney, Minna Harri, Nina Otis Haft, Rachael Dichter, Sara Kraft

Terrorism Interviews:

Democracy Interviews:

Hybrid Bodies Workshop Tableaux For The People – SF

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Photo: Jared Mezzocchi

 

As part of Big Art Group’s creation residency for The People – SF, Caden Manson lead a week long workshop in the company’s practice called Hybrid Bodies/Simultaneous Presence. The final two days were spent creating 4 tableaux that were incorporated into the live performance of The People – SF inside and on a 200 foot portion of the building facade. Below are the first two without sound. Origianlly played during the messenger monologue (included below)

(Text Excerpt form THE PEOPLE – SF)

Messenger

I admit, I lost myself on the way homeward. It wasn’t that the open ocean, arms flung wide, had no landmarks to lead us back to our home. We lost a sense of purpose, we lost our resolution.

What we feared most of all— us the amputees, the gravel-faced, the lettuce-skinned and prosthetic-emotioned— what we dreaded with apprehension now stitched up inside of us, this dread…

We feared– We knew something about ourselves that was irrevocable. We had stepped lightly over a threshold, and now, with regret, cast a glance back.

Where is your queen, your empress? She set the trip wires of the fire, the chain that would rush across mountains and tell you we were coming home, this cursed signal. That was apt, that flame after flame would signal our approach, now from Polverigi, from Halle, watch Salzburg burning, set fire if you don’t mind, to the whole valley floor, and let the summer fill with smoke, let them choke on it, through the intervening space and landscape and you think you can control these things but how easily a spark and cinder escapes and starts its own tyranny, and I watched the fires in Cairo, I watched the fires in Kuwait, I watched the fires in LA and Oakland, I saw the buildings ablaze downtown and felt them singe and called the pyroclast my herald to let them know that we are coming home from the great purpose of our lives we are coming home in clouds and smolders and we are bearing down like wildfire on our homeland—

The People – SF Time Lapse and Justice Interviews

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As promised, here is the second set of interviews from the American premiere of THE PEOPLE – San Francisco with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts & Z Space with residency support by Headlands Center For The Arts. Over the next two weeks we will upload each of the four sections (Greek Chorus) created for the performance at Z Space on September 16 & 17, 2011.

Also Here is a short 1 minute time lapse of the show by David Szlasa from Z Space. (Thanks David!)

Justice Interviews:

The People – San Francisco (Video Interviews – War Greek Chorus)

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We just finished up our creation and American premiere of THE PEOPLE – San Francisco with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts & Z Space with residency support by Headlands Center For The Arts. Over the next two weeks we will upload each of the four sections (Greek Chorus) created for the performance at Z Space on September 16 & 17, 2011. Thank you again to all the local Bay Area people that took time out to take part in the interview process.

WAR:

Backstage at THE PEOPLE – SF

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Here are is a video and some photos taken by Big Art Performer, David Commander, on our final tech before we opened the piece last night.

 

YBCA and Z Space welcome New York-based performance troupe Big Art Group back to the Bay Area with their new work, The People: San Francisco, a site specific, outdoor extravaganza that combines live theater with large scale, real time video projection. The narrative, constructed from interviews with members of the local community who voice their thoughts about democracy, war, terrorism and justice as it relates to their personal histories, loosely recreates the story of Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Live theatrical reenactments are intercut with earlier, taped interviews, projected via large scale video onto the side of a building where the live play and video are viewed by the audience at street level. Perceived as a kind of “living television,” The People repurposes commonly used media strategies such as video clips, interviews and re-enactments, to explore extraordinary forces reshaping contemporary government. It then sculpts these developments into a performative action that takes as its inspiration the foundational idea of community dialogue and the birth of democracy as theatrically embodied in the Oresteia. By inverting the established relationship between “mass-media” and private exchange, it transforms the “town square” into a public performance in which both performers and audience act out crucial roles in the construction of self-government.

The People: San Francisco is part of a larger cross-cultural work in which the video choruses from each location will be combined to create a window into the cultural understanding and variation of democratic public expression. To date, three productions in the series have been presented: The People—Italy, which took place in Polverigi, Italy with the participation and support of Inteatro Polverigi in 2007, The People—Germany, at Theatre der Welt 2008 in Halle, Germany, and The People—Austria at Szene Salzburg in 2010.

Some out takes from the preparation for tonights THE PEOPLE – SF

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Video Stills From The War Speech:

Video Still From The 5 Channel Tableaux Made With The People From The SF Contemporary Performance Scene:

Here Are Some Links To Prepress:
Robert Avila’s preview for The Guardian
Nirmala Nataraj’s preview for the SF Gate

More Info:
http://www.ybca.org/big-art-group

Some Of The Interviews Used As Wall Paper For The Sitcom Set:

 

Hybrid Body / Simultaneous Presence Workshop in San Francisco 9/5-9/2011

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(The Application Deadline has passed)

As part of the creation and presentation of the US premiere of THE PEOPLE in San Francisco, Big Art Group is offering a free 5 day workshop in the company’s training and compositional strategies with technology and the body.

Hybrid Body / Simultaneous Presence
A 5 day workshop September 5-9, 2011 at Z Space from 1-5pm (Tuesday 9.6.2011 will be from 2:30-5pm)
1. an introduction of Big Art Group’s Performance Practice (Real Time Film)
2. training and introduction to technology and concepts
3. time-limited studio compositional exercises
4. expansion of dramaturgy to the wider scope of THE PEOPLE
5. large group 5 channel compositions based on the themes of the project to be recorded and included in Big ART Group/YBCA/Z Space THE PEOPLE-San Francisco production September 16 & 17. (Attendance not required)

-Real Time Film; Task Based Choreography, or training the body for simultaneous presence. Movement based training in awareness of the video camera and its frame; learning multiple presence, or how to accomplish overlapping performance goals through moment-to-moment acting; dramaturgy of the Image; technical discussions about evolutions in image technology and the use of technology in performance.

-Video Puppetry; Radical Exchangeability; Queering Character: creating a character that exists only as an assemblage of the effort of several actors. Working as a group, exchanging control, and thinking as a cyborg. “Queer” used as a model for thinking beyond boundaries.

-Subverting Disposability- constructing performance from socially discarded objects, ideas, and stories. Constructing sets from trash, examining the role of “Junk Fiction.”

About Z Space

Z Space
450 Florida Street, San Francisco

Founded in 1993, Z Space is a hub for artists and audiences to revel in the creation, development, and production of outstanding new work. We commission, develop, and produce a full season of new works from a variety of disciplines including theater, dance, music, performance art, and new media. We foster opportunities around the nation for these works and for their Bay Area artists. We engage diverse audiences through direct interaction with the process, the projects, and the artists.

Since 2009 we have managed and operated a 13,000 sq/ft, 268-seat performing arts venue and gallery (formerly known as Theater Artaud): home to more than 40 weeks of public multidisciplinary arts programming annually.
www.zspace.org

Funding: This program is made possible in part by funding from the Hewlett Foundation, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bernard Osher Foundation, and the NEA.