A performance & film maker, actor, writer and creative producer -
I seek to evoke (and invoke) a sense of vulnerable presence, playfulness,
pathos and poetic possibility in and through my work.
Often driven by a set of gnawing personal or shared questions,
I meet creative practice as a way to move through those questions -
thoughtfully, playfully, clumsily, artfully with other people -
rehearsing, making and un-making meaning, self, community along the way.
This work has taken shape as performances, films, live cinema,
a queer scout troupe with a pop-up theater/headquarters,
a community ritual re-imagining of my Bat Mitzvah at a hotel,
as well as workshops, walks, plays, pedagogies
and surprising new forms (even to me).
A fool, at heart, my creative roots are in the "pandemonium arts" -
performance traditions that remain sensitive and responsive to people and place,
and that spring from a spirit of play and provocation.
And so, I seek out (and seek to create) deeply relational, artful encounters
that navigate the mess and magic of “groupness" and call upon the social imagination
to unsettle/open narratives and dream worlds forward.
WORKS
2022 - 2023 | A HISTORY OF GATHERINGS
In Process
Actors and audience enact gathering in everyday and impossible formations: a cluster of cells, a forest of trees, a family meal, an unproductive rehearsal - serve as content, context, as well as physical sites, through which to explore, estrange and understand the nature of gathering - as it is and could be. A work of live cinema created with Emily Mendelsohn, in development with support from New Georges & University of New Mexico's Arts and Technology Lab.
2021 | MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
A guided walk and creative workshop for the public to open questions around life's greatest taboo - death! Created with artist/death doula, Kate Muehlmann. Presented by Think Olio & Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture.
2019 | BAT MITZVAHA
A queer community ritual re-imagining of my bat mitzvah told through home video, live performance and sheet-cake. Supported by Queer|Art. Presented at The Wythe Hotel, NYC.
2018, 2020 | QUEER SCOUTS
A performance project & active scout troupe exploring queer identities, self/group determination, and celebration - comprised of live performance, video installation, ongoing meetings & publications. Supported by Queer|Art, Dixon Place, Abrons Arts. First presented at Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, NYC.
2018 | JO
Set in the 1980's Borschtbelt - a 13 year old girl reluctantly prepares for her Bat Mitzvah, when an unexpected encounter with a local teen sends her rite of passage in an unorthodox direction. Narrative short, Woodstock Film Festival, premiere.
2015 | THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE HERE
Audience-participants convene to build together through personal objects, poetics of space, worksongs, and lovingly-tended detritus from the cityscape - a garden, a boat and other real and imagined spaces become sites/opportunities for collective composition and future-dreaming. Supported by Brooklyn College and presented at Gallim Dance, NYC.
2014 | METAVERSES
2017 | QUEEN OF EVERYTHING
A theatrical burlesque & absurdist folktale, created with former Queen of Burlesque, Trixie Little, with original video design and music by Gato Loco. Presented by Creative Arts Alliance, Baltimore
2016 | A BAND CALLED COURAGE
Part-performance / part-mixtape, A Band Called Courage navigates the subjectivity of memory and the integrity of imagination, composing a true-tall-tale through childhood memories & games, original pop songs and indoor campfire realness. Created with the International Performance Ensemble, Pace University. Presented by Sibiu International Theater Festival, Romania.
2015 | METAVERSES
A media & performance hack of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, integrating the work and life of NYC's elder-immigrant artist communities into the museum's collections. Created in-residence at the Met's Media Lab. In collaboration with the Westbeth Home for the Arts. Presented at Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
2013 | DAVID LUNCH MOVIE TRUCK
Housed in a seemingly ordinary box truck, a cinephile family ushers its audience into their surreal cinematic universe - opening their cinema-house (and home) to reveal never-before-seen footage by the late-great auteur, David Lunch. Presented by Lost Horizon Night Market, NYC.
2012 | TINY DANCE FLOOR THEATER
An experiment in pop-up, micro-performance; a trio of performers enact a series of 1 - 2 minute performances on a moveable 4 x 4 checkered dance floor, inspired by and in relationship to the art in a gallery. Presented at Brody House | Art Show, Budapest.
2011 | FACEDANCING
A troupe of virtuosic idiots brings their singular choreography to the stage, attempting to move their audience using only the grace of the face. Narrative short, Maryland Film Festival, premiere.
