QUEER NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL SEPTEMBER 17-27 // 2014 ABEL AZCONA Spain BRANKO BREZOVEC Croatia DARKMATTER U.S. IVO DIMCHEV Bulgaria CARLOS FRANKLIN Colombia SUJATA GOEL U.S./India BRUNO ISAKOVIĆ Croatia JAN MARTENS The Netherlands MARISSA PEREL U.S. QUEER CLIMATE CHAUTAUQUA MOR SHANI Israel/The Netherlands T.R.A.S.H. The Netherlands UNTITLED QUEEN & MERRIE CHERRY U.S. JEREMY WADE U.S./Germany / MARK TOMPKINS U.S./France JACK WATERS & PETER CRAMER U.S. QueerNY.org QUEER NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2014 Queer New York International Arts Festival is taking place for the third time, presenting artists from the U.S. and around the world. We are proud to be able to introduce within the festival program a diverse range of works, aesthetics and topics, partnering with numerous venues in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Queer New York International will host over 25 events including 12 U.S. premieres of dance and theater per- formances, concerts, workshops, panels, discussions, etc. The QNYIAF expands the meanings of what queer perfor- mances can be. Only reading of queer(ness) through sexuali- ty, gender or identity is too often neglecting norms like social status and background, race and ethnicity, geography and other aspects of what positions us in the world. Deliberately introducing these ways of exclusion into the discussion about queerness, QNYIAF deepens the very investigation of queer. During the festival’s intensely paced 12 days, New York audi- ence will have the opportunity to see various performances by artists who are working in different performing art formats and challenging the margins of their own expressive forms. One of the artists we are very excited about is Ivo Dimchev who has been a regular guest at the festival and who will bring his latest work to our audiences. There are exciting artists from Croatia that we are presenting this year. Branko Brezovec who comes with a theater work based on a coming of age story by a famous Austiran novelist Robert Musil and Bruno Isaković who will show two of his works at the festival, one of them being created for New York based dancers during Bruno’s residency at Abrons Arts Center. Earl Dax, who is the recipient of this year’s Andre von Ah Research and De- velopment Grant that the festival gives out in memory of the festival’s co-founder, will connect queers and climate change over a two day event. Jeremy Wade and Mark Tompkins will bring their latest work, a collaboration aptly titled Stardust. A special program in the festival will be dedicated to young and very strong choreographers working in the Netherlands (Jan Martens, Mor Shani and T.R.A.S.H.) and will feature perfor- mances, workshops, talks and film presentations. The festival offers much more and we are looking forward to seeing you at some of the performances and events. Zvonimir Dobrović Artistic Director QueerNY.org 4 // QUEERNY.ORG 4 //QUEERNY.ORG DANCE/PERFORMANCE MARISSA PEREL U.S. More Than Just a Piece of Sky U.S. Premiere Wednesday, September 17–Saturday, September 20 // 8 pm The Chocolate Factory Theater $15 // chocolatefactorytheater.org More Than Just a Piece of Sky mines personal and cultural exile as a site for exploring gender and sexuality, knowledge and power, ability and disability. Through the mythology of Yentl, largely based on Barbra Streisand’s 1983 movie musical and the story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Marissa Perel and the performers examine their relationships to oppressive cultural constructs and their inherited religious and nationalist narratives. Perel deconstructs the narrative of Yentl to tell a new story, one where difference can create new terms and ways of seeing self and other. Marissa Perel is an artist and writer based in New York. Her interdisciplinary work includes performance, installation, criticism and curatorial projects, and she often uses collaboration as a platform for the exchange of disciplines, working methods, and discourses with choreographers, composers, and visual artists. Drawing from the polemics of identity and representation, Perel orchestrates an immersive world where text, objects, dance and video transmit experiences of personal and societal conflicts. Her work has been presented at numerous galleries, theaters, and performance spaces in the U.S. and abroad, including Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, The Poetry Project, the Chocolate Factory Theater, Center for Performance Research, Defibrillator Performance Art PERFORMANCE Gallery (Chicago), D.I.V.O Institute (Prague), and Medium Gallery (Bratislava, Slovakia). / Directed by Marissa Perel; performed by Marissa Perel, Jumatatu Poe, and Lindsay Reuter; music by Marissa Perel with Miguel Gutierrez and guest composers; video by Marissa Perel with Nicholas Steindorf and Kristiana Weseloh; Photo by Yasamin Ghanbari DANCE 6 // QUEERNY.ORG 6 //QUEERNY.ORG THEATER BRANKO BREZOVEC Croatia Confusions U.S. Premiere Wednesday, September 17 // 9 pm Thursday, September 18 + Friday, September 19 // 9:30 pm Saturday, September 20 + Sunday, September 21 // 8 pm Abrons Arts Center Playhouse $15 // abronsartscenter.org Confusions was conceived as a radical theater experiment created as a collaboration between different departments of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Branko Brezovec, the highly innovative Croatian theater director, and a professor at the Academy, engaged students in staging Austrian writer Robert Musil’s 1906 novel, The Confusions of Young Törless. The novel follows the vicissitudes of the young military school student Törless, whose confused moral complicity with his classmates via brutality such as torture and rape reveals the dark side of homoerotic relationships. The work examines mechanisms of desire, the incomprehensibility of the other, and the pathology of normality. Branko Brezovec studied philosophy and comparative literature before entering the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, where he graduated in theater direction. In the 1970s Brezovec founded one of Yugoslavia’s most significant alternative groups, the Coccolemocco Theatre Company. Brezovec’s performances have been presented at international festivals and in theaters around the world. Since 2002 he has worked as a professor at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Dramatization and Direction: Branko Brezovec; Set Design and Photographs: Tihomir Milovac; Costume Design: Irena Sušac; Music: Peteris Vasks (Symphony No. 2), Richard Wagner (Siegfried; Act III, scene 3); Video: Ivan Marušić Klif; Assistant Director and Stage Movement: Natalija Manojlović; Assistant Director and Video Projection: Ivan Planinić; Light Design: Petar Strmečki; Technical Support: Stjepan Filipec Ges; Construction of the Set: Zvonko Sarić & Apscisa d.o.o. Cast: Romano Nikolić, Hrvojka Begović, Adrian Pezdirc, Domagoj Janković, Ognen Drangovski, Suzana Brezovec, Tihomir Milovac; Films: Kurt Kren and Ivan Ladislav Galeta; Production: Production: Academy of Dramatic Art Zagreb, Eurokaz, Domino THEATER 8 // QUEERNY.ORG 8 //QUEERNY.ORG PERFORMANCE IVO DIMCHEV Bulgaria I-cure U.S. Premiere Friday, September 19 // 8 pm Abrons Arts Center Experimental $10 suggested donation // abronsartscenter.org If healing is a choice then why not make this choice while being in the theatre. Why should we waste another hour of trying to be more “cultural,” when we can use it for being “healthier.” This performance is made to heal not only par- ticular physical or psychological difficulties you have but also all of them simultaneously, I-cure can also heal people you love and care for, it all depends on where you would like to focus the healing power of I-cure. I-cure is not one to one therapy, its designed to cure the whole audience at the same time. Your involvement in the process will have a significant impact on the healing, even much bigger than the performance itself. As more you think of I-cure as a cultural experience as more general and temporal will be the therapeutic effect of it. Don’t waste your time in the theatre, take advantage of it! Ivo Dimchev’s work is an extreme, colorful mix of performance art, dance, theater, music, text, and visual elements. He is the author of more than 30 performances presented across Europe and North America. He has received numerous international dance and theater awards, including the Iron Medal for Contemporary Art “Vencislav Zankov” (2013) and a Bessie Award nomination for his work Lili Handel (2011). After his master’s studies at DasArts Academy in Amsterdam, Dimchev moved to Brussels and opened his own performance space, Volksroom, where he presents young international artists. Dimchev is a master teacher at the National Theater Academy in Budapest, and founding director of Humarts foundation in Bulgaria. He is currently artist in residence at Kaaitheater in Brussels. Text, music, choreography by Ivo Dimchev PERFORMANCE 10 // QUEERNY.ORG 10 //QUEERNY.ORG INSTALLATION/PERFORMANCE GROUP SHOWCASE Saturday, September 20 // 8 pm Grace Exhibition Space & Gallery $10 suggested donation // grace-exhibition-space.com This will be a site-specific event where the artists are invited to create projects that reflect their unique artistic universes in innovative ways that are a departure from their usual form or media. The evening will include numerous international and U.S. artists who have been selected to take part. During the course of an evening, the artists will present their work with each performance / installation / intervention / happening starting in consecutive intervals, and lasting from several minutes to