PS122 Announces RAMP, A New Residency Program
Company:
PERFORMANCE SPACE 122
PERFORMANCE SPACE 122 ANNOUNCES RAMP, NEW RESIDENCY PROGRAM FOR EARLY CAREER ARTISTS
Performance Space 122 (PS122) announces RAMP, a new residency program designed to support early career artists. The residencies, to be held at The Chain Theatre (21-28 45th Rd.) in Long Island City, provide New York City-based artists with the resources to create ambitious new work. In addition to rehearsal space, RAMP will offer technical assistance, commissioning fees and marketing support. The intention of RAMP is to begin an ongoing relationship with a select group of artists, which may lead to large-scale presentations. The inaugural year of RAMP artists are the choreographic duo of Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith, musician Eliot Krimsky and his progressive-indie band Glass Ghost, and theater artist Kaneza Schaal.
For over 3 decades, PS122 has been a hub for contemporary performance and an active member of New York City’s cultural community through their continued support of brave new works by some of the city’s most talented and ambitious performance makers.
“The advantage of the RAMP program is that it allows us an extended time period to engage with each artist while providing them with the resources to make work. It's not 'go away, make your show and we'll see it when it's done' – it's a long-term, multi-season commitment to Molly and Eleanor, Eliot and Kaneza, and their process at this moment in their respective careers,” says Jess Edkins, PS122 Creative Producer.
Each residency will culminate with a public showing. Tickets, priced at $10, can be purchased at ps122.org or by calling 212-352-3101. Additional information, including artist statements and showing dates, can be found below of by visiting ps122.org/RAMP.
About the RAMP artists
Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith (Dance)
Residency dates: March 3-15
Public showing: March 15 at 8pm
Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith make collaborative duet work using a movement process deeply rooted in improvisation. The imaginative texture of their work comes from the duet making truly collaborative decisions; embracing the tension and pliability that results from the interplay of two different minds. A tone of loneliness pervades their work through employing a sparse, intimate, and feminine environment of two bodies in space.
Artist Statement
“Each piece that we make is a choreographic collaboration between the two of us and we are always the only performers. The texture of the work comes from making decisions together; it emits a tension and pliability that results from being extracted and configured between two different minds. Expressing the imaginative realm through movement is our performative challenge, and is supported by the camaraderie and charge of the duet practice we have established. Meanwhile, a tone of loneliness pervades our work. We perform in a sparse, intimate, and feminine environment of just our two bodies.
“Our process of making dances begins with, and is sustained by, improvisation. We have been improvising together for the last six years. We find moments we value when improvising, cultivate these moments into performative expressions, and then (try to) perform them. Our performances therefore express ideas that were originally understood through movement. They are at once highly imaginative, and simply about being with one another while considering an audience.”
Eliot Krimsky/Glass Ghost (Music/Video)
Unidentified
Residency dates: March 17 - March 29
Public Showings: March 28, 29 at 8pm
Eliot Krimsky is a Brooklyn based musician who, along with his band Glass Ghost, creates “elegant compositions of frosted indie pop” (The New Yorker). With band members Michael Johnson, Tyler Wood and Aerial East, Eliot Krimsky explores the convergence of technological mediation and music through live conceptual, participatory concerts. For RAMP, Glass Ghost will display audience input (photo’s, personal information, Facebook/Twitter pages) on projection screens in an attempt to probe identity in the internet age questioning what a true identity is.
Artist Statement
“Fueled by audience questionnaires and personality graphs, Glass Ghost’s live performance Unidentified will comment on modern advertising culture and its use of identity advertising, and then it will question what true identity is.
“Unidentified is a conceptual, participatory concert – based on the music of Glass Ghost and exploring modern identity in the modern online advertising culture. It will consist of live band performances accompanied by live audience feed of focus group style questionnaires and personality graphs. The intention of this show is to question the branded use of personal identity and to unravel bigger questions of who we are outside the corporate lines of Google, Facebook and GPS tracking devices. As the arc of the show builds, audience information along with photos start to glitch and break down, visually capturing the disintegration of the qualitative data profiles to which the audience contributes. Here, in this data “junkspace,” a new raw form of identity is revealed, based on the de-construction the old one.”
Kaneza Schaal (theater)
Residency dates: March 31 - April 12
Public Showings: April 11, 12 at 8pm
Kaneza Schaal is a New York City based theater artist best known for her work as an actor with The Wooster Group, Elevator Repair Service and Richard Maxwell. Schaal will use this RAMP residency to begin work on her first evening-length piece. Using the Egyptian Book of the Dead as inspiration, Schaal seeks to cultivate performance that uses text as a jumping off point to explore visual, physical, sonic and abstract expression.
Artist Statement
“Using the Egyptian Book of the Dead as a blueprint to the afterlife we will explore light and shadow as the physical and metaphoric architecture for the performers’ kinetic life. Excavating the text for guideposts on the path of the living, an ancient tale of justice, burial, and death becomes a resurrection for the three performers. Animating this world with a soundscape developed on the newly released SEA technology, we will push the boundaries of how sound can integrate as a performer in live work. Our artist inquiry will be guided by the question: For whom do we bury our dead?”
Credits
RAMP artists are commissioned by Performance Space 122 with a 50th Anniversary Grant from the Jerome Foundation. Additional presentation support provided by Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance and Jerome Robbins Foundation.
About Performance Space 122
Performance Space 122 (PS122) provides incomparable experiences for audiences by presenting and commissioning artists whose work challenges boundaries of live performance. PS122 is dedicated to supporting the creative risks taken by artists from diverse genres, cultures and perspectives. We are an innovative local, national and international leader in contemporary performance.
Beginning in 2011, PS122 embarked on one of the most unusual and potentially radical shifts in its history, including a re-structuring of artist support, a business model overhaul, and the renovation of our building. As PS122’s East Village home undergoes a much-needed interior renovation supported primarily by the City of New York, DCA and DDC, PS122’s core activity continues to be providing audiences with contemporary live performance.
For over 3 decades, Performance Space 122 has been a hub for contemporary performance and an active member of the cultural community. Under the curatorial vision of Vallejo Gantner (Artistic Director 2005 – present) PS122 has developed a set of programs designed to re-establish the value of live performance, provide singular experiences for audiences that inspire critical thinking, and sustain the creative process for artists throughout their career. Largely in partnership with peer organizations, PS122 currently presents artists in all disciplines in spaces all over the city during an annual fall & spring season and COIL festival in January.
In addition to the commissioning and presenting of artists from NYC across the US, and around the globe, PS122 has increased our activity off the stage to provide audiences with a variety of access points and context for the work on stage. These activities include both talkbacks with the artists as well as in depth conversations that bring together luminaries from non-arts disciplines to discuss a variety of topics including everything from religion, to migration, to queer real estate and cultural diplomacy. PS122 encourages the asking of questions and debate of contemporary society’s issues in both artistic practice and audience experience.
Website: ps122.org
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