100 Flatbush Avenue 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11217 718-330-0313 x 1 issueprojectroom.org Press Contact: Nick Scavo ​ [email protected] ISSUE Winter Benefit: Robert Wilson & Jim Jarmusch / Lucie Vítková Wednesday, February 6th, 2019 - 8pm | ISSUE Project Room 22 Boerum, Brooklyn, NY 11201 ​ $100 / $50 ISSUE Members / $250 After December 31st, 2018 Photo Credits: Yiorgos Kaplanidis, Amos Perrine Wednesday, February 6th, ISSUE is thrilled to present a collaborative performance between ​ two of America’s most renowned experimental artists, and members of ISSUE’s Advisory Council, theater director and visual artist Robert Wilson and film director, screenwriter, actor, ​ ​ ​ and musician Jim Jarmusch. In a benefit concert supporting ISSUE Project Room, the two will ​ ​ ​ stage a new collaboration featuring Wilson reading John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing alongside ​ ​ ISSUE Winter Benefit: Robert Wilson & Jim Jarmusch | February 6th, 2019 | ISSUE Project Room improvised musical accompaniment by Jarmusch. The evening opens with a performance from Czech composer, improviser and performer Lucie Vítková, an emerging artist who presents ​ ​ work with an experimental approach to accordion, hichiriki, harmonica, voice, and tap dance. ISSUE hosts this benefit in order to raise funds for ISSUE’s Artists-In-Residence (AIR) program. Entering its 13th year, the AIR program is a core part of ISSUE’s mission to be a cultural incubator for artistic innovation and inspire a diverse array of artists to take creative risks, commissioning and premiering numerous works that have expanded our understanding of the meaning and potential for art and performance. ISSUE is encouraged by Wilson and ​ Jarmusch’s support of innovative work in their respective fields and proud to have their advocacy in promoting this mission. One of the central texts of twentieth-century experimental literature, John Cage’s Lecture on ​ Nothing has been described as “charming, often amusing, often quotable, equally often ​ intentionally infuriating and profoundly thought provoking” by the Los Angeles Times. Wilson’s legendary productions of the piece are well known for their acoustically and visually inspiring approach to the philosophical and poetic text, which Cage based on a complex time length scheme similar to some of his music. At ISSUE, Wilson presents a paired down vocal reading of the work, focusing on the text itself alongside the musical stylings of Jarmusch. An archetypal auteur of American independent film, Jim Jarmusch has an equally vibrant history with music -- including his post-punk band The Del-Byzanteens, his “enthusiastically marginal rock band” SQÜRL, and his numerous collaborations alongside lutist Jozef van Wissem (including a presentation staged at ISSUE in 2012). Throughout these projects, Jarmusch's guitar work has been described as “metaphysical,” at times sonically shapeshifting into wholly different sounds than one would usually expect from the instrument. Wilson and Jarmusch have previously collaborated on an in-progress opera about Nikola Tesla with composer Phil Kline, which they workshopped at developmental session at Wilson’s Watermill Center in 2014. Both artists sit on ISSUE’s Artistic Advisory Council and possess truly unique understandings to how sound can enter, frame, and expand upon a visual medium. Lucie Vítková presents "Experimental Folklore Piece," an extraction of elements of Czech and Slovak folklore, represented by accessories such as a carved wooden ax, an overtone flute made out of plastic pipe, dance, and singing. Vítková combines these elements and accompanies them with feedback which sonifies the artist's movement. Born in Waco, Texas, Robert Wilson is among the world’s foremost theater and visual artists. ​ ​ His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music and text. His images are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged, and his productions have earned the acclaim of audiences and critics worldwide. After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Wilson Press Contact: Nick Scavo, [email protected] 718-330-0313 issueprojectroom.org ​ ​ ​ ISSUE Winter Benefit: Robert Wilson & Jim Jarmusch | February 6th, 2019 | ISSUE Project Room founded the New York-based performance collective “The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds” in the mid-1960s, and developed his first signature works, including Deafman Glance (1970) and A Letter for Queen Victoria (1974-1975). With Philip Glass he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976). Wilson’s artistic collaborators include many writers and musicians such as Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed, Jessye Norman and Anna Calvi. He has also left his imprint on masterworks such as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Brecht/Weill’s Threepenny Opera, Debussy’s Pelléas et Melisande, Goethe’s Faust, Homer’s Odyssey, Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Verdi’s La Traviata and Sophocles’ Oedipus. Wilson's drawings, paintings and sculptures have been presented around the world in hundreds of solo and group showings, and his works are held in private collections and museums throughout the world. Wilson has been honored with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, and an Olivier Award. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the German Academy of the Arts, and holds 8 Honorary Doctorate degrees. France pronounced him Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (2003) and Officer of the Legion of Honor (2014); Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (2014). Wilson is the founder and Artistic Director of The Watermill Center, a laboratory for the Arts in Water Mill, New York. Jim Jarmusch is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor, and musician. ​ In addition to directing over a dozen films over the past three decades, Jarmusch plays guitar and electronics in SQÜRL, a band he formed with frequent collaborators Carter Logan and Shane Stoneback. In discussing his varied creative practice, Jarmusch explains what motivates him: "I consider myself a dilettante, not in a negative way, but because I have interests in a lot of different things and I want to try and do them. I'm not necessarily a master of anything." His films include Permanent Vacation (1980), Stranger than Paradise (1984), Down by Law (1986), ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Mystery Train (1989), Night on Earth (1991), Dead Man (1995), Year of the Horse (1997), Ghost ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Broken Flowers (2005), ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ The Limits of Control (2009), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Paterson (2016), Gimme Danger ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ (2016) and the short film "Int. Trailer. Night." (2002). Lucie Vítková is a composer, improviser and performer (accordion, hichiriki, synthesizer, voice ​ and tap dance) from the Czech Republic. During her studies of composition at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (CZ), she has been a visiting scholar at Royal Conservatory in The Hague (NL), California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (USA), Universität der Künste in Berlin (D), Columbia University in New York (USA) and lately at the New York University. Her compositions focus on sonification (compositions based on abstract models derived from physical objects), while in her improvisation practice she explores characteristics of discrete spaces through the interaction between sound and movement. In her recent work, she is interested in the social-political aspects of music in relation to everyday life and in reusing trash to build sonic costumes. She has been nominated on 2017 Herb Alpert Awards in Arts in category of Music, was commissioned by the Roulette Intermedium in 2017 and has become a Roulette resident artist in 2018. She has put together two ensembles – NYC Constellation Press Contact: Nick Scavo, [email protected] 718-330-0313 issueprojectroom.org ​ ​ ​ ISSUE Winter Benefit: Robert Wilson & Jim Jarmusch | February 6th, 2019 | ISSUE Project Room Ensemble (focused on music behavior) and OPERA Ensemble (for singing instrumentalists). During the 2017 Mentor/Protégé Residency in Tokyo (JP), she studied hichiriki with Hitomi Nakamura and has been a member of the Columbia University Gagaku Ensemble. As an accordion player, she collaborated with New York based TAK Ensemble, S.E.M. ensemble, String Noise, Du.0, Argento Ensemble, CU Raaga, Ghost Ensemble and Wet Ink. ### Founded in 2003, ISSUE Project Room is a pioneering nonprofit performance center, ​ ​ presenting projects by interdisciplinary artists that expand the boundaries of artistic practice and stimulate critical dialogue in the broader community. ISSUE serves as a leading cultural incubator, facilitating the commission and premiere of innovative new works spanning genres of ​ music, dance, literature and film. ​ Press Contact: Nick Scavo, [email protected] 718-330-0313 issueprojectroom.org ​ ​ ​.