About

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 twenty two 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, Caden Manson invented the integrated spectacle ‘Real-Time Film,’ a hybrid of cinema 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 exist 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 (Theatre Journal, TDR, 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 – 2010, The Sleep
2008 The Imitation
2008 The People – Halle at Theater der Welt Festival (Halle, Germany)
2008 – 2010, SOS
2010 The People – Salzburg at Sommerszene Salzburg (Salzburg, Austria)
2010 Cityrama
2011 The People – San Francisco at YBCA (San Francisco, USA)
2011 Fleshtone
2012 Broke House
2012 The People – Portland at PICA
2014 The People – Lower East Side (NYC)
2014 Body Edit
2014 Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Originale
2017 Opacity
2022 Broke House 2.0 – La Biennale di Venezia Teatro

Selected Touring

CLEARCUT, catastrophe! (1999)
Kraine Theatre, NYC

The Balladeer (2000)
Kraine Theatre, NYC

2001
Shelf Life
The Kraine Theatre (NYC)

2002
Flicker
Premiere Performance Space 122 (NYC)
Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse, France)
Festival d’Automne (Paris, France)
Théâtre de Lorient (Brittany, France)

2003
Shelf Life
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)

Flicker
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
Shelf Life
Kaiitheatre (Brussels, Belgium)
Hebbel Am Ufer (Berlin, Germany)
Festpielhaus Hellerau (Dresden, Germany)

Flicker
New Territories Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
Emilia Romagna Teatro (Modena, Italy)
Sommerszene Festival (Salzburg, Austria)

House of No More
Performance Space 122, NYC

2005
Flicker
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
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
House Of No More
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
Hebbel Theater (Berlin Germany)
La Comete (Chalons en Champagne, France)
Theatre d’Angouleme (Angouleme, France)
Festival d’Automne à Paris (Paris, France)

2007
Dead Set #3
The Kitchen (NYC)
deSignel (Antwerp, Belgium)
Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany)
Donau Festival (Krems, Austria)

The People Project
The People – Polverigi at Inteatro Polverigi (Polverigi, Italy)

The Sleep
Notte Biana (Rome Italy)

2008
The People Project
The People – Halle at Theater der Welt Festival (Halle, Germany)

SOS
Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, Austria)
Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse, France)

The Sleep
Wild Project (Workshop Showings in NYC)

2009
SOS
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)

The Sleep
Festival Escena Abierta (Burgos, Spain)
Exodos Festival (Ljubljana, Solvenia)
Hebbel Am Ufer (Berlin Germany)

2010
Cityrama
University of Bern (Bern, Switzerland)
Prospettiva 09 (Turin, Italy)

The People Project
The People – Salzburg at Sommerszene Salzburg (Salzburg, Austria)

The Sleep
Kampnagel Internationales Sommerfestival (Hamburg, Germany)

2011
Flesh Tone
Abrons Art Center (Workshop Showing NYC)

The Sleep
Abrons Art Center (Workshop Showing NYC)

The People Project
The People – San Francisco at YBCA (San Francisco, CA, USA)

2012
Broke House
Abrons Arts Center (NYC, NY)

The People Project
The People – Portland at PICA (Portland, OR, USA)

2013
Body Edit  –  BONE 17 Performance Festival (Bern, Switzerland)

2017
Opacity – Bard Live Arts Biennial 2017 Fisher Center For The Performing Arts

2022
BROKE HOUSE – La Biennale di Venezia Teatro (Italy)

2023
THE RENDER – Teatro Stabile del Veneto/Asteroide Amor Festival (Italy)

Awards

2017 Center For Arts in Society Narrative Initiative Grant, Carnegie Mellon University
2016 The Berkman Faculty Development Fund, Carnegie Mellon University
2016 The Fund for Research and Creativity, Carnegie Mellon University
2012 NYSCA
2012 NPN Performance Residency Program
2011 MacDowell Colony Fellow
2011 NYSCA
2011 Headlands Center For The Arts Residency
2010 NYSCA
2009 Rockefeller MAP Fund Grant
2009 NYSCA
2009 Mid-Atlantic Arts Fellowship
2004 Francis Gould Foundation Grant
2004 Greenwall Foundation Grant
2004 Etant donnés: The French-American Fund Grant
2004 Arts International Grant
2004 National Performance Network Creation Fund
2003 Rockefeller MAP Fund Grant
2002 DNA Grant
2002 Pew Fellowship In the Arts
2002 Arts International Grant
2001 Foundation For Contemporary Art Fellowship

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
Abrons Art Center
Bard Live Arts Biennial 2017 Fisher Center For The Performing Arts
Teatro Stabile del Veneto

Workshops and Teaching

“Frameworks”, Biennale College – La Biennale di Venezia Teatro, Venice, Italy (2022)
“Masters Directing Think Tank” Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburg, PA  (2013)
“Devised Ensemble Creation Using Randomizers and Feed Back Loops” CUNY Brooklyn MFA PIMA (2012-2013)
“Masters Teaching” Bern, Switzerland (2010)
“Theory and Practice” Hamburg, Germany (2010)
“Live Overload” Torino, Italy (2010)
“Framing the Actor” Toulouse, France (2004, 2006)
“Multimedia Workshop” Montreal, Quebec (2006, 2009)
“Dance on Camera” IFA Academy, Polverigi, Italy (2004, 2005, 2006)

Clearcut, Catastrophe!

The Balladeer

The Balladeer


Description:

Mixing song, text, puppetry, dance and vivid, cinematic direction, The Balladeer tells a freeform story of new love and its defeat. The piece becomes a backdrop for an exploration of identity, anguish, desire; by turns empathetic and vulgar. In an ‘adolescent’ work that led directly to the technique of Real Time Film, Big Art Group mixes filmic and televisual ideas with theatrical form to create an unnerving, bizarre hybrid.

Press:

“… a strong new voice in downtown theatre.” – Time Out New York

“the company continues to deliver on its promise to “aggressively attack the boundaries of theatre” in a most unusual way- with intelligence, talent, humor and a refreshing lack of pretentiousness.” – Next

“A high school dance becomes a backdrop for an intelligent exploration of identity, anguish, desire. Affecting and funny in its vulgar way.” – Village Voice

“…a worthy candidate for cult status, unfolding like a downtown theater version of a midnight movie.” – Matinee Magazine

“Manson is out to challenge propriety in every way he can.” – Citysearch.com

“fresh, insightful, and clever” – TheatreMania.com

Shelf Life

Shelf Life

Description:

In Shelf Life a live action movie unfurls on stage, a film in which three desperate characters who inhabit a consumer wasteland become obsessed with an alluring icon. Each tries to possess and mold her in the form of their media-induced desires, even as she uses them as a means to her own consumptive ends. Fueled by jealousy, rage, and betrayal, this “love quadrangle” ignites into a bizarre and tragic struggle over the ownership of happiness.

Shelf Life uses found images, garbage, sampled sounds, and Real Time Film technique: a conceptual model collapsing performance, television, and movies using live action and video. It examines the use of image in entertainment, the experience of the image versus its manufacture, and the split between surface and interior.

Video:

Images:

Creation History:

2004
Kaiitheatre (Brussels, Belgium)
Hebbel Am Ufer (Berlin, Germany)
Festpielhaus Hellerau (Dresden, Germany)

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 Musium (Pittsburg, PA)
Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany)
Sommerszene (Salzburg, Austria)

2001
The Krain Theater (NYC)

Press:

“New York’s Big Art Group closed the Pan Pan Theatre Symposium with a multimedia event that can be taken as a template for use of the form” – Irish Times

“…clearly cutting edge.” – Lavender Magazine

“extraordinary new production…confirms the troupe’s standing as one of New York’s most innovative companies.” – Next Magazine

“…gloomily hilarious portrait of our disposable society.” – Backstage

” a rarity–a hybrid of film and play.” – Showbusiness Weekly

“hysterically wacky…beguilingly enjoyable…giddy” – AmericanTheaterWeb.com

“clever and jarring…inventive” – The Village Voice

“Ultra-clever…exposes the abscess behind the shiny promise of commercialism.” – Citysearch.com Critic’s Pick

“Shelf Life is a uniquely vivid cross betweena movie and a play. ” – Talkin Broadway

Flicker

Flicker

Description:

Ficker uses Big Art Group’s Real Time Film technique of live video projection and split second-choreography to examine the image of violence in this second part of the RTF trilogy. In Flicker,  two “movies” collide into each other and bleed onto a single screen. In one narrative, voyeurism and softcore sadomasochism spin out of control, while the B-story follows a group of city friends who find themselves lost in a wilderness that turns mythic and murderous. As the two films intersect, a dark tale of disjunction emerges, exploring the need to comprehend the irreality of death and the everyday presence of violence. A comedy.

Credits:

Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson
Direction/Set/Video: Caden Manson
Sound/Music: Jemma Nelson
Text: Jemma Nelson with Caden Manson and Rebecca Sumner Burgos

Produced by Big Art Group and Diane White

Performed by: Amy Miley, Linsey Bostwick, Rebecca Sumner Burgos, David Commander, Cary Curran, Mikeah Ernest Jennings, Willie Mullins, Jeff Randall, Tommy Lonardo, Justin Christopher, and Jon Norman Schneider

Assistant Director: Linsey Bostwick
Lighting Design: Jared Klein
Costume Design: Kim Gill and Nini Hu
Movement Trainer: Amy Miley

Video:

Images:

Creation History:

2005
In Motion Festival (Barcelona, Spain)
REDCAT (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)

2004
New Territories Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)
Emilia Romagna Teatro (Modena, Italy)
Sommerszene Festival (Salzburg, Austria)

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)

2002
Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse, France)
Festival d’Automne (Paris, France)
Théâtre de Lorient (Brittany, France)
Performance Space 122 (NYC, USA)

Press:

“The theatre of images for the new century is born: rapid, without concessions, violent and consuming itself at 100 miles an hour.” – Le Télégramme

“No description of “Flicker,” is likely to convey its ragged, witty lunacy.” – New York Times

“intriguingly unique and original… it’s unlike anything else in town.” – New York Post

“Wave of the future” – Time Out

“Thoughtfully designed and sharply executed, director Caden Manson’s production reasserts his claim as downtown’s new best thing.” – City Search

“…a breakneck immediacy that feels very contemporary.” – Village Voice

House of No More (2004-2007)

House Of No More

Description:

House of No More is the third and final part of a conceptual trilogy of Real Time Film begun with the works Shelf Life and Flicker. The performance starts with the reenactment of a crime told by a mother who thrusts herself on screen in her quest for her missing child. But simultaneously as this premise unfolds, the performers develop an antithesis– that the story is being faked as it is being created, dispelled at the same moment as it is conjured. As the characters dissolve into this corrupt transmission, becoming ghostly and multiplied across the surface of the “film,” what emerges is not a battle for the ownership of an absolute truth, but a thirst for a satiating lie.

The story of House of No More, as with all the parts of Real Time Film, is not told through the devices of conventional dialogue and narrative, but across an extended field of meaning in which the method of delivery contaminates the message. The image contradicts phrases, sounds obscure dialogue, the audience chooses what to see. The performance escapes across bounds: from creator to receiver, instigator to voyeur, it moves through states of being with an alarming and contemporary facility.

Video:

Creation History:

2004
Performance Space 122 (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)

2005
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)

Press:

“Constructed as a breathless and disquieting narrative, Big Art Group’s House of No More is a spectacle as challenging as it is original, as freaked out as it is dazzling, far beyond traditional schemas and classical conceptions.” – Midi Libre

“Big Art Group breathtakingly unfolds this hour-long crash test like an infinitely decelerated car accident – or act of love?!” – Der Tagesspiegel

“gleefully subversive” – Time Out New York

“Big Art Group’s technologically dazzling House of No More is perfectly aligned with the vertiginous tempo of modern life.” – Village Voice

“mind-bending” – Digital City

“on the bleeding edge of video technique.” – New York Sun

“The show is raw and caustic even as it remains sleek and professional. ” – Theatre Mania

“House of No More takes theatre into the 21 century by marrying art house film with classic theatre; it’s a 3D movie you won’t need glasses to view” – Next Magazine

Funding:

Rockefeller MAP Fund, The DNA Project, a program of Arts International, made possible through the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation

Co-producers: Festival d’Automne (France), Theatré Gâronne (France), Maison de la Culture de Créteil (France), Hebbel Am Ufer (Germany), Caserne Mirabeau (France), Teatro di Roma – Vie dei Festival (Italy)

Co-commission:The Wexner Center For The Arts, National Performance Network, Performance Space 122

Dead Set (2007 – Serial Project)

The Sleep (2007 – Touring)

The Imitation (2008)

The People (2007 – Serial Project)