Tyler Ashley presents KIDNAP ME at the HOT! Festival

Company:
HOT! Festival
Dixon Place and Tyler Ashley present KIDNAP ME
Featured in the 23rd Annual HOT! Festival at Dixon Place
Monday, July 21 at 7:30PM
New York, NY, June 30, 2014 – Brooklyn-based dancer and choreographer Tyler Ashley presents the premiere of KIDNAP ME as part of the 23rd annual HOT! Festival at Dixon Place. A 90-minute experiment in duration, KIDNAP ME investigates providing for an unborn family, answering to hunger of all kinds, and the slutty hustle of a wannabe-star. Bela Tarr’s film “The Turin Horse” and music of the late Julius Eastman serve as inspiration maps for duration, angle, and repetition. Ashley examines the family unit versus personal evolution in control, vulnerability, and desperation. Live drawing in the performance celebrates queer motifs embedded in our bodies and the art, and composes an historical record of the creation process and the resulting show.
Ashley, who identifies as a genderqueer artist and person, explains that his entire life has been “an accelerating search for space that encourages and fortifies the artistic and communal spectrum; an androgynous playing field and a time when the public is not obsessed with categories; a time when open minds are a plenty and no one cares about differences; a time when life is more about relationships, feelings, invisible energies, vulnerability, and honesty.”
In his quest to imagine a model of this world, Ashley supplements movement with collage sculpture and drawing. He uses materials from his rural, small town American childhood such as power tools, plywood, spray paint and other working class construction elements. For him, these materials hold dominant masculine cultural meaning and lower class subservient economic politics that, when charged by a genderqueer artist and placed into a homo dance, transcend the very systems in which they are categorized. They become magic wands and potions to break down the mystery of the other, lessen the fear of the unknown, and reveal the pointless gender, cultural, and socioeconomic labels that humans have developed over time and placed on every kind of person, object, and behavior.
Performed by Aranzazu Araujo, Tyler Ashley, Sarah McSherry, Diego Montoya, Shane O’Neill, Rakia Seaborn, and Gillian Walsh.
PERFORMANCE DETAILS
Monday, July 21 at 7:30PM
Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street
$12 in advance, $15 at the door, $10 students/seniors
Estimated Runtime: 90 minutes
ABOUT TYLER ASHLEY
Tyler Ashley is a choreographer and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has had the pleasure of working with Elizabeth Streb, Walter Dundervill, Larissa Velez-Jackson, Biba Bell, John Jahnke, Sahra Motalebi, Yackez, Enrico Wey, Benjamin Kimitch, Michael Ingle and Rakia Seaborn. Ashley's own work has been presented by Performa11, Friends of the High Line, Times Square Alliance, Fire Island Pines Performance Series, and Strange Loop Gallery. His work has also been seen at AUNTS, Columbia University, Danspace Project, Dixon Place, JACK, Gina Gibney Dance Center, Arts@Renaissance, CAGE, and The Wythe Hotel.
ABOUT DIXON PLACE
Established in 1986 as a laboratory for performing & literary artists, Dixon Place is dedicated to supporting the creative process by presenting original works of theater, dance, music, literature, puppetry & performance art at all stages of development. This local haven inspires & encourages artists of all stripes & callings to take risks & push personal & professional limits. DP’s foremost priorities are to serve as a safety net for artists & to provide vivid experiences that stimulate the senses & imaginations of our audience. Each year, DP presents over 600 artists & ensembles.
ABOUT HOT!
Dixon Place (Ellie Covan, Artistic Director) proudly presents the 23rd Annual HOT!, the NYC Celebration of Queer Culture. The world’s longest-running LGBTQ Performance Festival, HOT! offers theater, music, dance, puppetry, performance art and homoeroticism for the whole family! HOT! is the pioneering celebration of queer performance and culture – and the oldest annual festival of its kind in the world. Dixon Place is proud that HOT! serves as the model for other queer festivals across the globe and has become a performance destination for emerging talent in the LGBTQ community. This year’s HOT! festival, featuring more than fifty artists, will run July 5th through August 2nd at Dixon Place, located at 161A Chrystie Street in New York City.
View the Festival line-up here.