City Pimping: Council Meeting, participatory theater (Houston, TX)

This is a little pre-show pimping which was scheduled to go out earlier this week. It was halted due to Superstorm Sandy. I'm happy to report our friends are fine and recovering. I'm sharing it as there is still one more night to see it here in Houston.

City Council Meeting is a participatory theater event taking place at three different venues in Houston, Texas from November 1-3, 2013. The November 1 event will take place at Palm Center, 2^nd floor courtroom, 5300 Griggs Road at 7:30pm. The November 2 event will take place at Project Row Houses’ Eldorado Ballroom, 2310 Elgin St. at 7:30pm. The November 3 event will take place at DiverseWorks, 4102 Fannin St. at 7:30pm. Admission to all events is free. 

The performance is co-presented by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts where the event was developed during the 2012 research residency of Aaron Landsman and DiverseWorks. City Council Meeting will combine local participants which have selected various roles with transcripts from several cities’ government meetings along with original writings. It even touts a surprise ending.  

According to the press from the event: City Council Meeting was initially commissioned and developed through a residency at HERE Art Center in New York, through the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP). City Council Meeting was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Pilot, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The project also received support from The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. City Council Meeting is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by DiverseWorks Art Space, in partnership with HERE, Zspace and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). The project also received support from the Puffin Foundation, Jerome Foundation and many individual donors. For more information on City Council Meeting, please visit: citycouncilmeeting.org

Keren Cytter's "Show Real Drama" at DiverseWorks...

This is a short write-up I wrote last month to share about Keren Cytter's vidoe/performance at DiverseWorks. It was not published elsewhere due to a duplicate performance in NYC, so here it is for our local audience. 

 Keren Cytter’s Show Real Drama was performed at DiverseWorks Art Space October 10 through October 13, 2012. This performance is in conjunction with Cytter’s exhibition Video Art Manual about the history and development of video art, on view in DiverseWorks’ galleries.

For Show Real Drama, the actors are in the role of actors who are creating their own scenes following failed attempts at finding work as actors. Each scene is introduced with a projection of the words Show, then Real, then Drama.

For this multimedia performance, the actors and the audience are present in the now, with the performers acting out the drama of their relationship while at times even describing audience members. A video projection of their previous interactions and “drama” adds a time-based element and reveals more of their “real” drama. 

The combination of live performance and the time element of the video, along with acting about acting, make for an experience of decided awareness of someone as they experience an awareness of and interaction with themselves. As in her exhibition on view where video art is examined through watching video footage, we are examining drama through watching real drama. 

Show Real Drama, written and directed by Keren Cytter, came to DiverseWorks Art Space following presentations at The Kitchen, Kunsthall Bergen, and the Tate Modern among other venues. It is the last performance at DiverseWorks’ current location. For more information about exhibitions and their new location, please visit: www.diverseworks.org