Public Research Session/PRELUDE Pre-Festival Kickoff This event is taking place on Sunday, September 22 from 2-6pm at the Invisible Dog Art Space. The Brooklyn Commune Project is a grassroots initiative organized by Culturebot.org and The Invisible Dog Art Center to educate, activate and unify performing artists of all disciplines to work together towards a more […]
The Universe is a Small Hat Photo by Nora Merecicky The Universe is a Small Hat is a participatory electronic music theater work, which tells the story of a techno-Utopian space colony leaving Earth in order to form a new, more rational, civilization. It is designed as an entirely interactive experience that merges narrative with […]
24-Decade Concert Series of the History of Popular Music: The 1850s (an open rehearsal) Photo by Tim Hailand The Bard of Demoncracy (Walt Whitman) takes over the Lincoln Center Atrium in the guise of bedazzled creature Taylor Mac on Oct 3rd. In the meantime Taylor joins the PRELUDE Festival for an open rehearsal of this event. […]
This event will take place on Wednesday, October 2, Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. Experiment #2 1/2 (PRELUDE) Photo by Lukasz Drapala The founders of the Institute for Psychogeographic Adventure (IPA) infiltrate the PRELUDE Festival, coaxing audience members out of public spaces and into individual psychogeographic journeys through the Graduate Center and the […]
Brecht predicted, “Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.” In consideration of a decade of PRELUDE, we bring together former and present PRELUDE curators for a lively discussion (led by artist David Levine) about the way things could become. These curators, who also live double and even […]
Eternal Photo by Michael Koshkin A merging of theater, cinema, and environmental installation, Eternal is Fish's most conceptually ambitious production to date. In August, Fish assembled a film crew to shoot actors Thomas Jay Ryan and Christina Rouner performing the final scene of the 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in a continuous […]
This event will take place on Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. Dream of the Red Chamber / a performance solo for two sleepers Photo by M. Pokoik Dream of the Red Chamber, a performance for a sleeping audience, is a deeply ambient journey through Cao Xueqin’s 18th century Chinese novel “Dream of the […]
DRUNKFISH OCEANRANT Photo courtesy of the artist A J-pop extravaganza in the style of Rakugo with one, Fishy Fisherman, who loves bourbon whiskey. What is Rakugo? Quite literally, it means "fallen words": the art of storytelling where one must be seated on a cushion in seiza (that way of Japanese sitting that hurts most […]
Marked by a resurgent artistic interest in social, civic, and community engagement, questions of authorship, accountability, and responsibility are front and center in the discourse of current performance practices. Social and cultural producer Gavin Kroeber leads a conversation with a group of artists who create participatory performance works with social valences, exploring the slippage between […]
This event will take place on Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. OK Radio Photos courtesy of the artists Nature Theater of Oklahoma has launched their own OK Radio podcast: long form conversations in the spirit of the radio conversations of John Cage and Morton Feldman. Listen in as they talk with artists, curators, […]
This event takes place on Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. The Radish Photo courtesy of the artist USWeekly meets The Onion in The Radish, a cheeky gossip rag devoted to downtown theatre. Conceived of by theatrical media mogul Kippy Winston, The Radish covers the highs and lows, the joyful, the questionable, the juicy […]
Perfect City Perfect City is research and art project created in collaboration with experts in urban planning, and with individuals on the margins of cityscapes. Through conversations with both of these groups, followed by interviews with a cross section of residents where they live, work and commute, the project will try and offer a framework […]
We the people do hereby create, the United States Department of Arts and Culture. Citizen Artists and Cultural Agents wanted! The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture is a new citizen-powered initiative to catalyze art and culture in the public interest and cultivate the public interest in art and culture. Culture precedes politics. Active creative […]
Office Project The Confidence Man; photo by Blaire Mezibov The Office Project is an immersive theatrical experience that invites the audience to join the temporary workforce of Prairie Dog Mutual Life Insurance Company. Centered on the dreams, ambitions, and identities of the show's employees, permanent and otherwise, as their employers take the company public, The […]
The People - L.E.S. Photo by Joseph Webb, courtesy of PICA The People - L.E.S. is the 6th installment of a serial project created by Big Art Group. It takes place as an hour long live performance simulcast in a 5-channel wide monument sized video on the outside of a public building to a audience […]
This event will take place on Wednesday, October 2, Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. Experiment #2 1/2 (PRELUDE) Photo by Lukasz Drapala The founders of the Institute for Psychogeographic Adventure (IPA) infiltrate the PRELUDE Festival, coaxing audience members out of public spaces and into individual psychogeographic journeys through the Graduate Center and the […]
Elijah Green photo by Georgia Neirheim Andrew Ondrejcak continues work on an adaptation of influential Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s A Dream Play. The play presents the scenario of a divine visitation into the contemporary tedium of the everyday human. Despite unremarkable existences, the characters’ stories layer and culminate in a portrait of the interconnectivity of […]
Selfies Photo courtesy of the artists In fashion, there's armor. Through devices, we locate, shield and shoot. If we toss this stuff, how will we re-find ourselves and each other? Well, let’s start from scratch. And sniff. Join Todd Shalom & Niegel Smith for a mostly-indoor participatory walk. A rite that roots and wrests the […]
Alan Smithee Directed This Play Photo by Dorothy Hung With their next dance/theater work, Alan Smithee Directed This Play, Big Dance Theater liberates film scripts from their narrative moorings to reveal a stunning series of pure film tropes, which meld pathos and politics from iconic films of the American70’s and Cold War Russia. On a […]
The Baroness is The Future Photo by Michael De Angelis The Baroness Is The Future is based on the life and works of poet, found object sculptor and Dadaist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Exploring moments of intersection of her autobiography and poems, the piece explodes her fiery, forceful writings into incantation and dance. Artist Statement: […]
That Poor Dream Photo by Shelly Rodriguez Inspired by Great Expectations, Charles Dickens’s classic novel about coming of age in a profoundly class-conscious society, That Poor Dream draws on the company’s own complex relationship to class identity and economic disparity in American society to exploring how class defines and divides us, and how our shared […]
YOUARENOTHERE Photo by Zbiniew Byzmek/Andrew Schneider cross-section work-in-progress programmed and performed by Andrew Schneider This is what it feels like to be alive — right now. Artist Statement: My performance and design work critically investigates our everyday emotional, physical, and psychological dependence on technology. I attempt to cut to the core of what it feels […]
This event will take place on Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. Dream of the Red Chamber / a performance solo for two sleepers Photo by M. Pokoik Dream of the Red Chamber, a performance for a sleeping audience, is a deeply ambient journey through Cao Xueqin’s 18th century Chinese novel “Dream of the […]
This Was The End Black Eyed Susan and Jim Himelsbach. Photo by Hunter Canning A performance in which four actors in their sixties attempt each night to arrive at the end of Uncle Vanya – in a last ditch effort to alter the outcome. In Chekhov’s play, Vanya asks – “What if I live […]
This event will take place on Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. OK Radio Photos courtesy of the artists Nature Theater of Oklahoma has launched their own OK Radio podcast: long form conversations in the spirit of the radio conversations of John Cage and Morton Feldman. Listen in as they talk with artists, curators, […]
This event takes place on Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. The Radish Photo courtesy of the artist USWeekly meets The Onion in The Radish, a cheeky gossip rag devoted to downtown theatre. Conceived of by theatrical media mogul Kippy Winston, The Radish covers the highs and lows, the joyful, the questionable, the juicy […]
The play is not necessarily the thing in this PRELUDE-commissioned experiment/project, aimed at capturing the here-and-now awareness and reason of the contemporary playwright. Starting a couple months ago, these five playwrights began exchanging emails on an extended chain with no structure and no rules; simply an open, frank conversation re: (no subject). The threads that […]
Milton Terrible Things and HOW TO BUILD A FOREST-Paula Court; Bird Eye Blue Print-Miguel Lopez 3 actors, speaking and singing, search for a shared inner life found in towns named Milton across the U.S. Rich and textured, complicated with challenges, hopes, fears and dreams, Milton's inner life shifts, accumulates, and floats by much like the […]
Pink Melon Joy Photo by Chris Giarmo Forever radical, forever modern, Gertrude Stein’s landscapes of women are at their most complex in this early play, Pink Melon Joy, in which good housekeeping is a battlefield and pregnancy is contagious. Moving briskly between war-time testimony, fractured poetry, and oozy baby-talk, a group of women are drawn […]
Employee of the Year Photo by Maria Baranova 600 HIGHWAYMEN present a sneak-peak into their newest construction, Employee of the Year, a truthful play resulting from a fictional story. Artist Statement: 600 HIGHWAYMEN construct renegade theater productions for business and pleasure. Collaborating Artists: created by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone About 600 HIGHWAYMEN: 600 HIGHWAYMEN is […]
This event will take place on Wednesday, October 2, Thursday, October 3 and Friday, October 4. Experiment #2 1/2 (PRELUDE) Photo by Lukasz Drapala The founders of the Institute for Psychogeographic Adventure (IPA) infiltrate the PRELUDE Festival, coaxing audience members out of public spaces and into individual psychogeographic journeys through the Graduate Center and the […]
A Living Documentary Photo by Jeff Sugg This is a preview from a new work in progress by Cynthia Hopkins titled A Living Documentary: a musical performance experiment exploring the challenges of earning one’s living as a theater artist in the 21st century. Come see the World Premiere at New York Live Arts in March […]
AARON/MARIE Photo by Bailey Carr, BaileyDOTCOM.com Aaron/Marie is a high-speed literary and live music spectacle, performed by a narrator and a musician. It follows the mixed tales of a missing roommate, an exile, and various ghosts of the Northeastern United States. Music and narrative intertwine through an ongoing saga of connected stories. Artist Statement: We like […]
Platonov, or the Disinherited 3D model by Josh Higgason of scenic design for Platonov, or the Disinherited Jay Scheib’s Platonov, or the Disinherited is a new, live cinema adaptation of Chekhov’s first full-length play. Platonov chronicles an emotionally bankrupt society of anti-heroes who are less heroically also losing their loves, their homes and perhaps, their […]
#HASHTAG: A Performance Art Performance Photo by Mars Hobrecker For his Prelude commission, Brooklyn-based performance artist Chris Tyler in collaboration with avant-garde celebrity James Franco and teenage nightlife sensation Ashleigh Nicolle Smith will create #HASHTAG, a three-part project based around Marina Abramovic’s famous work Marina Abramovic Institute: The Founders (2013). Its themes will range from […]
birds can fly away from other things but humans have to walk or run Photo by Vincent Lafrance • An investigation into the nature of our nature. • Where and how in the universe do we inhabit and also why? • What is our current role in your life? • I don't know but I […]
A closing night party to celebrate the 241 artists and companies featured in the first ten years of PRELUDE and to ring in the decade to come. PRELUDE will provide transportation to the Closing Night Party on Friday 10/4 leaving from outside of CUNY at 9:30pm. In order to assure a seat on one of our […]
