AUNTS Archive at Governors Island June 10-22 | Welcome to the BARchive

 
The AUNTS BARCHIVE is a public facing community-centered hub for the collection, organization, and creation of an archive for AUNTS! 

Past AUNTS artists, organizers and new visitors participate in the archive by contributing materials, images, oral histories, or by witnessing. Collectively assembling an archive at our triangular sports bar in the style of Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party,” the BARCHIVE at LMCC’s Art Center on Governors Island will be open throughout June where visitors can visit the bar to view and participate in the archive-in-progress. Look at photos and videos from past events, attend live performances, talks, and join us for a drink at the bar.

RIVER TO RIVER Happy Hour events at the BARCHIVE

Sat 6.10 4-7pm OPENING  A night of Toasts, Hosted by Stephanie Acosta

Sun 6.11 2-5pm SOUND at AUNTS, Hosted by Rena Anakwe

Tues 6.13 4-7pm MESSES at AUNTS, Hosted by Cara Francis

Thurs 6.15 4-7pm WRITING and GLOSSARY at AUNTS, Hosted by Mariana Valencia

Fri 6.16 4-7pm ROVING at AUNTS, Hosted by Leyya Mona Tawil

Sat 6.17 4-7pm REFLECTIONS from the Personal Archive, Hosted by jess pretty

Sun 6.18 2-5pm AUNTIE-INSTITUTIONAL, Hosted by Travis Chamberlain

Additional events June 20-27 to be announced soon! 

AUNTS experimental archivist: Stephanie Acosta

Oral Histories project: Biba Bell

June 1, 2023 - June 30, 2023 All Day Event LMCC Arts Center on Governors Island 110 Andes Rd, New York, 10004, Free

Triangle Studio Summer in Dumbo

STUDIO NEWS | Headed to Dumbo for Summer 2022

Shifting spaces in precarious times can be so wild and after two years I have left our beloved Treasure Town studio where I spent the pandemic surviving a crisis just in time to join the brilliants over at Triangle Arts in Dumbo for the summer. I’ll be working on new projects, hosting visits and small sharings, and hopefully you!

If you are a writer, curator, engager of the art thing, and would like to visit my work this summer please feel free to contact me and book a visit!

TEETH at Coffey Studios | May 20 + 21

Jessie Young is back with her electric ensemble for one more showing of the remarkable TEETCH

I’ve been lucky to join Jessie on multiple stages of this work and research and watching this team ans specifically these magic movers build new vocabularies and shake floorboards has been a revelation. Shana Crawfords lights, Stevie May’s construction and Alexa Grae’s sonic offering really blows it out. Go catch this before it goes back into the cosmos!

Big love to these brilliant artists.

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Dance+ is annual interdisciplinary dance event curated by A+J Founding Director and choreographer Amanda Hameline.

About this event

Dance+ Live Media will feature choreography by Jessie Young and Amanda Hameline. Both of their works employ media controlled live by the performers and explore the reciprocal relationship between the body and the built and natural environment. Rather than using technology to expand or polish the performance space, they instead involve elements of sound, light and projection in their choreography to reflect upon and highlight the absurd and grotesque sides of reality. 

Featuring:

Teeth Choreography by Jessie Young with Lighting Design by Shana Crawford and Sound Design by ALEXA

Performers: Bree Breeden, Justin Faircloth, Nina Guevara, Mia Martelli, Ariana Speight, and Meghann Trago

Walking After Choreography and Sound Design by Amanda Hameline, created in collaboration with performers Anna Hull and Jace Weyant

Coffey Street Studios

FOMO : DIPTYCH at Chocolate Factory Theatre | May 19, 20, 21

Thrilled to have joined this wild bunch as dramaturg and hope you will go check out the way it is DONE! This work is sincerely dreamy, deeply absurd, and necessary for all. GO GO GO!

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Notes on the show BELOW

Performances will take place at The Chocolate Factory Theater, 38-33 24th Street, Long Island City.

View the show program.

The chameleon’s eyes move independently of one another, offering an almost 360 view of its surroundings. Even when both eyes focus on the same object, they do so independently, making the chameleon’s vision a naturally occurring diptych. This remarkable ocular duet is the basis for Berg’s new work FOMO:DIPTYCH. A densely layered performance installation to study the diptych: as a form, a way of viewing, listening, feeling, and consuming. A place where missing something is guaranteed (and ok).

FOMO:DIPTYCH asks if performance – as an inherently ephemeral experience – can help us recognize our capacity to hold multiple perspectives at once, and when considered collectively, reveals the cacophonous jumble of inputs we piece together to make meaning. Our eyes move independently of the eyes of our neighbor, each of our brains collecting only the objects we choose to let in. And where we sit affects what we encounter.

FOMO:DIPTYCH invites the audience to observe the performance from two distinct vantage points: a white box art gallery (with bubbles and conceptual canapes) or a seat at the sports bar (with cheap beer and celebrity bartenders) both within the Chocolate Factory Theater’s new raw space.

created by Laurie Berg in collaboration with Matt Romein (technical design); Madison Krekel and Omar Zubair (sound); Jodi Bender, Ayano Elson, Marion Spencer, Laurie Berg and more (performance); Charlie Welch (sports bar); jess pretty (creative consultant); Shana Crawford (lighting); Shomit Barua (technical associate); and Myssi Robinson (trainview designer).

You Need Me aka not yet titled | New Work Screening

You Need Me a.k.a not yet titled (2022)

Conceived + Performed by Mette Loulou von Kohl

Director | Stephanie Acosta

DP | James Tate

Produced by Intrinsic Grey Productions

Filmed at Treasure Town, Acosta's studio in Brooklyn, NY February 2022

Project Description by artist Mette Loulou von Kohl "not yet titled, explores the position and identity of the zionist entity as existing in a perpetual state of self-defense and moral exception. It asks how my body, as a Palestinian body, can reveal this claim as fantasy through sensuality, dominion and disgust."

Acosta + von Kohl have previously collaborated on the staged work 'No One Likes an Ugly Revolutionary' at Abrons Arts Center March 2020 prior to the Covid Pandemic.

Pain + Resilience Public Talk with Megan Moe Beitiks

Shut Up! Closing Event and Book Reading

Closing Event with Stephanie Acosta.

Closing Reception & Reading:
Tuesday, March 22, 5-7pm
NARS Project Space

Shut Up is a meditation on light and confinement. Drawing upon previous work with reflections, breath, trauma, and self-awareness, artist Meghan Moe Beitiks will redirect light from the Project Space window with mirrors and reflective surfaces. Patterns in the space, from mirrored pixels to rotating displays to sequined pillows, are based on pixelations of the surface of the sun. A meditation on time, celestial bodies, isolation and ecologies in the pandemic.

As a closing event for the exhibition, on March 22 at 5pm, Beitiks, joined by Stephanie Acosta, will read an excerpt from her book Performing Resilience for Systemic Pain , recently published with Routledge, in the space as the sun sets, and discuss it with visitors and friends.

Meghan Moe Beitiks is an artist working with associations and disassociations of culture/nature/structure. She analyzes perceptions of ecology though the lenses of site, history, emotions, and her own body in order to produce work that analyzes relationships with the non-human. She was a Fulbright Student Fellow, a recipient of the Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists, a MacDowell Colony fellow, and an Artist-in-Residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. She exhibited her work at the I-Park Environmental Art Biennale, Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn, Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery in Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the House of Artists in Moscow, and other locations in California, Chicago, Australia and the UK. She received her BA in Theater Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her MFA in Performance Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. www.meghanmoebeitiks.com

Funding support for this exhibition provided by University of Florida College of the Arts.

Good Day God Damn in The LATINX Project | READ

Overwhelmed by the thoughtful witnessing of this write up on The Latinx Project about our wild closed world of Good Day God Damn. Feeling huge gratitude! Go check it out and soak up all their great content!

BIG LOVE to Alex Santana for seeing and believing

Apocalypse Talks: a Dumpster-fireside Chat | Series LAUNCH

Introducing Apocalypse Talks: a Dumpster-fireside Chat Series. Join us weekly on Wednesdays at 7pm as we get into the textures, sensations, emotions, landscapes, materials, aromas, by-products, aesthetics, and other messiness of living in a multi-crisis reality. With a range of guests we’ll talk about how we are dealing, and how our practices and processes refract life in the end times.

Next event: March 31, 2021 at 7pm, featuring imogen xtian smith (register here).

These are the core themes in Stephanie Acosta’s upcoming exhibition Good Day God Damn (opening May 2021 at the new Chocolate Factory space), where we will start our conversation, but where we go only the fire knows.

Sign in and drop questions, join this bit of cosmic chaos while Acosta chats with artists, makers, astronomers, and you!

Organized by Stephanie Acosta and Alexis Wilkinson.

UPCOMING | Dramaturgy in Dance | Online FREE Event

Thrilled to be joining such a talented group of folks to talk about the complex topic of dramaturgy in contemporary dance. Humbled to be invited by the powerhouse Melanie George

Art + Action Talk : Dramaturgy in Dance

Feb 23 | 7p EST

Art + Action Talk: Dramaturgy in Dance

with Stephanie Acosta, Pele Bauch, and Katherine Profeta, moderated by Melanie George.

Dramaturgy in Dance brings to together a group of artist-dramaturgs working in dance and dance theatre to discuss the methods and materials of dramaturgy in our field. The group represents a range of aesthetics and practices happening in the field today.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Melanie George – Artist Moderator
Melanie George is a dance educator, choreographer, scholar, and dramaturg. She is the founder and director of Jazz Is… Dance Project and an Associate Curator and Scholar-In-Residence at Jacob’s Pillow. As a dramaturg, she has contributed to projects by David Neumann & Marcella Murray (on the Obie Award winning Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed), Raja Feather Kelly, Ephrat Asherie, Susan Marshall & Company, Machine Dazzle, and Urban Bush Women among others. A highly sought after teacher and choreographer of the neo-jazz aesthetic, Melanie is a featured in the documentary UpRooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance. Melanie has presented her research on jazz improvisation and pedagogy throughout the U.S., in Canada and Scotland, and founded the global advocacy website jazzdancedirect.com. She is the former Dance Program Director at American University, and has guest lectured at Harvard University, the Yale School of Drama, and The Juilliard School, among others.

Art + Action Talk, curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, is Gibney’s online talk show for discerning fans of dance, the creative process and all the ways art plays a vital role in society.

In Solidarity | A Statement for Leon Black’s Removal From MoMA’s Board

Glad to be part of this charge forward. No rest until we have the world we deserve!

Protesters outside of MoMA in October of 2019 (photo by Hakim Bishara/Hyperallergic)

Over 150 Artists Call for Leon Black’s Removal From MoMA’s Board Over Jeffrey Epstein Financial Ties

Our Statement :

Collective Statement Signed by 157 artists, curators, and art workers

We, as artists and art workers, support the removal of Leon Black from the board of MoMA for reasons that have already been stated by many others. However, this should be considered the bare minimum. Beyond his removal, we must think seriously about a collective exit from art’s imbrication in toxic philanthropy and structures of oppression, so that we don’t have to have the same conversations over and over, one board member at a time. This thinking can only catalyze action once we state plainly: We do not need this money. Museums and other arts institutions must pursue alternative models, cooperative structures, Land Back initiatives, reparations, and additional ideas that constitute an abolitionist approach toward the arts and arts patronage, so that they align with the egalitarian principles that drew us to art in the first place.

Aaron Hughes

Aaron Landsman

Abou Farman

Ahmed Isamaldin 

Ahmad Salameh

Ajay Kurian

Alan Ruiz

Alberto Garcia Rodriguez

Alex Paik

Alex Zandi

Alexa Punnamkuzhyil 

Ali Eyal

Ali Yass

Amanda Matles, Pratt Institute

Aminah Ibrahim 

Ana Ratner 

Anna Sew Hoy

Andrea Fraser

Andreas Amble

Andrew Ranville

Andrew Weiner, NYU

Ánima Correa

Anna Harsanyi

Ann Holder

Art and Labor Podcast

Art Handlers Alliance

Artists For Workers

Aru Apaza

Axe Binondo

Azikiwe Mohammed

Baseera Khan

Betty Roytburd

Blakey Bessire

Brett Wallace

Caitlin Cahill

Carlos Rosales-Silva

Chelsea Birenberg

Christina Chan

Christina Martinelli 

Claire Mirocha

Clarinda Mac Low

Clark Filio

Claudia Hart

Collective Çukurcuma (Mine Kaplangı & Naz Cuguoğlu)

Dachil Sado

Dana Kopel

Danielle Dean

David Borgonjon

David Kramer 

Denisse Andrade, Pratt Institute

Devin Kenny

Diwali Hasskan

Edi Friedlander

Emily Johnson

Emily Shanahan

Eric Golo Stone

Erin Murphy

Eriola Pira

Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung

Francesca Altamura

Frank J. Stockton 

Franklyn Cain

Gee Wesley 

Gordon Hall

Greg Lindquist

Guerrilla Girls

Halieadorable211

Hallie McNeill 

HOUSING Gallery

Hussein Adil

Ian Epps

Irkalla

Isabelle Brourman

Jake Davidson

Jared Brown 

Jason Simon

Jeffrey Grunthaner

Jennifer M. Williams

Jenny Dubnau

Jessica Wilson

Jesus Benavente

Jihan El Tahri

Jo Shane

Johanne Swanson

Johnson Study Group

Jonathan González

Jorge Rojas

Joseph Lubitz

Josephine Heston 

Julia Kwon 

Juliana Cerqueira Leite

Kai Matsumiya

Kat Zhao

Katherine Aungier

Katie Giritlian 

Katie Grace McGowan, Detroit, MI.
Katy Bea

KJ Freeman

Kristan Kennedy

Lawrence Sanchez

lexi welch

Lia Gangitano, PARTICIPANT INC

Lilly Hern-Fondation

Lincoln Tobier, Los Angeles

Lissa Regnier

Liz Glynn

Lluis Alexandre Casanovas Blanco

Lorelei Ramirez

Lucas Baisch

Manolis D. Lemos

Marnie Briggs 

María Verónica San Martín

Max Warsh

Megan Elevado

Michael Rakowitz

Michelle Rosenberg

Mikeeh Zwirner (Institute of Museums Against All Fucked Up Social Systems)

Mimi Bai

Minahil Khan

Mira Dayal

Moyra Davey

Nan Goldin

Nataša Prljević

Nia Nottage

Nicole Eisenman

Nick Wylie, Public Media Institute

Nikiesha Hamilton 

Nikki Columbus

Noah Fischer

Paddy Johnson

Patrick Carlin Mohundro

Paul John 

Paul McAdory

Peter Rostovsky, artist, writer, educator.

Phil Collins

Rachel Valinsky

Ramón Miranda Beltrán

Rebecca Naegele

Rena Anakwe

Rindon Johnson

Rory Murphy 

Ryan Oskin

Ryan Scullin

Sam Korman

Sara Grace Powell

Sara Magenheimer

Sari Weisenberg

Shanjana Mahmud

Sherko Abbas 

Sophia Friedman-Pappas

Stephanie Acosta

Stephen Sewell

Sunny Iyer

Taehee Whang (Hyperlink Press)

Teresa Ross Tellechea

the Dismantle NOMA collective

Todd Ayoung, Pratt Institute
Todd Gray

V. M. McEwen

Valerie Chang

Vanessa Thill

Vijay Masharani

Wes Larios

William Powhida

Winslow Smith

Xavier Danto

Xaviera Simmons

Zazu Swistel

Editor’s note 2/12/2021 11:57am EST: This list of signatories has been updated since its original publication.

TINY by Mairead Case | FREE Event | Book Release

Updated Video Link of the full event HERE

So excited to be sharing some writing and responses to the talented Mairead Case’s new book TINY. The incredible book on grief and magic and time and quiet. Catch me speaking in dreamland.

Eventbrite for RSVP

Published by Featherproof

TINY by Mairead Case

Good Day God Damn | WORLD PREMIERE | Chocolate Factory Theater

IT IS HERE AND I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! THIS IS IT! THE ONE WE BEEN CHURNING ON! DO NOT MISS!

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GOOD DAY GOD DAMN 
March 19, 20, 21 + 26, 27, 28 
The Chocolate Factory Theater 
GET TICKETS HERE 

​Tickets are going fast and there is limited seating so don't come cryin' to me later! This is the one, the one we've been workin on, churning on, evolving, this baby is it and she is HERE!  If you saw other works in progress fear not THIS IS A WHOLE NEW WORK and you DO NOT WANT TO MISS IT!  

Living in gratitude for this dark, absurdist, genius cabal of collaborators including Leslie Cuyjet, Miriam Gabriel, Angie Pittman, and Jessie Young, and joining us on stage, the operatic alien Alexa Grae is brining us sonic reaches and vocal gateways and light portals by Shana Crawford.

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[WORLD PREMIERE] THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY THEATER PRESENTS

Stephanie Acosta Good Day God Damn

March 19-28, 2020 ; Thursdays - Saturdays at 8pm

The Chocolate Factory Theater5-49 49th Avenue, LIC NY 11101

In a multi-frame assemblage of video projection, the cinematic lens, and the theatrical frame, the performers of Good Day God Damn - four dancers, an opera singer, and an ill fated screeching director - move as an organic sentient mass through multiple atmospheres and states, exploring ideas of the cinematic thriller and extraterrestrial hope in an attempt to disassemble, rebuild, and hold onto the very notion of survival in an absurd multi-crisis reality, asking: what does it mean to get through it? Dissonant sounds and images give way to choral moments in a darkly thrilling and dynamic disarray.Created and directed by Stephanie Acosta.

Performers: Leslie Cuyjet, Miriam Gabriel, Angie Pittman, and Jessie Young. Sound and vocals: Alexa Grae. Lighting Design: Shana Crawford. Projection Mapping: Ryan Holsopple.Good Day God Damn began its development as part of a Creative Residency at The Chocolate Factory Theater in September 2018, curated by Blaze Ferrer.

No One Likes An Ugly Revolutionary | World Premiere | NY

It’s a TWO WORLD PREMIERE kind of month this March! Thrilled to have directed this gorgeous work with the deeply talented Mette Loulou von Kohl. Catch us at Abrons Art Center for 3 SHOWS ONLY!

March 5-7 | Buy Tickets HERE

Opening night reception co-hosted with Arab.AMP

An interdisciplinary solo performance created and performed by Mette Loulou von Kohl, No one likes an ugly revolutionary explores the artist’s relationship with the Palestinian resistance fighter Leila Khaled and the connections that shape armed resistance, terrorism, fetish, reverence, internalized orientalism, and diasporic longing.

Director: Stephanie Acosta
Video Collaborator: Bleue Liverpool
Sound Collaborators: Ashley Hefnawy and Saint Abdullah
Lighting Designer: Evan Spigleman
Stage Manager: Manny Rivera

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FUNDING

No one likes an ugly revolutionary was commissioned by Abrons Arts Center through the Jerome Foundation AIRspace Residency Program, with additional support from AFAC (The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture) الصندوق العربي للثقافة والفنون.

The 2019-2020 Season at Abrons Arts Center is supported, in part, by generous grants from the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Jerome Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, and other generous Henry Street Settlement funders. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Spring 2020 | Chocolate Factory Theater | Good Day God Damn Premiere!!! Announcement

Traveling through the fractured American landscape, looming vibrations push the ground up and the cosmos down as our community-turned-cabal explores terror, tectonic shifts, psychedelic self-harm and toxic monuments. Through the lens of a thriller, our cell flows through domestic borders, mingles with the extraterrestrial and unpacks landlocked limitations through discursive research, experiments in moving image, experiential installation, and absurd rigorous ensemble development.

Performances will take place at The Chocolate Factory Theater.

Performers: Leslie Cuyjet, Miriam Gabriel, Angie Pittman, Jessie Young.

Good Day God Damn began its development as part of a Creative Residency at The Chocolate Factory Theater in September 2018, curated by Blaze Ferrer.

Podcast | Movers and Shapers

Excited to have had a chance to chat about dance, performance, curation and my art journey recently. Invite me on your podcast! Invite me to your panel, gallery, class, riot! I'm ready to chat about the work we make, how we all make it, and why.

Movers and Shapers A Dance Podcast no.85 hosted by the ever curious Erin Carlisle Norton. Here's me talking about my swirly trajectory, history, practice, peeves and the joy of multitasking. You can also hear it HERE

One of the really great things about Erin’s comprehensive archive is that we hear the lived experience not just the work, you hear artists speak to how the work got made, how the life in this work is being lived. Artists can forget to think of themselves or each other as three dimensional beings, which is wild to me because so much of my practice is those corners and creases where life and dreams meet. It was a pleasure to sit and chat with her. Check out the full archive and listen up!