// VELOCITY OPEN FOR(U)M > FAILURE: Conversations Around Art + the Economy //
SEPT 17-23, 2012
Velocity Founders Theater (1621 12th Avenue) + Capitol Hill Locations
All events are free unless otherwise noted.
Velocity Open For(u)ms invite one and all into an open, freewheeling discourse on issues in contemporary art and society. Open For(u)ms focus multiple Velocity Speakeasy Events around specific Velocity performances.
The Velocity Open For(u)m FAILURE: Conversations Around Art + the Economy is a week of multidisciplinary art, book clubs, workshops, speakeasy panels, family style dinners and conversations taking place alongside Guest Artist Keith Hennessy’s Turbulence (a dance about the economy).
MON SEPT 17
Body Book Club
Facilitated by STANCE Editor Syniva Whitney + Vanessa Dewolf
TEXT But, What Is Queer Art? : A Paradoxical Manifesto by Cassie Peterson
Please join us to discuss the texts, read from them, and enjoy a few drinks and snacks. We’ll do a bit of writing and a bit of reading aloud. Bring your questions or ideas about these two works. Do they provoke you? We’ll leave with a few ideas about using this material and our discussions to generate movement and embodiment.
Back Room at Liberty Bar (515 15th Ave E) / 5:30PM
FREE
TUES SEPT 18
Body Book Club Part II
Facilitated by STANCE Editor Syniva Whitney + Vanessa Dewolf
TEXT Failure as a Poetic Dimension by Harald Szeemann
Together in the studio we will explore the readings and ideas in movements and other embodiment processes that give us a physical approach to the language and readings of these texts.
Velocity Steward Studio / 5-6PM
FREE
THURS SEPT 20
The Art of Politics + the Politics of Queer: Speakeasy Roundtable
A panel and community conversation framing the broader themes of Turbulence with Keith Hennessy and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, activist and author of Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform.
Continue the conversation over a family style meal.
Velocity Founders Theater / 7:30PM
Pay What You Can
FRI SEPT 21
Workshop: Keith Hennessy + the Turbulence Team
Explore improvisation and performance skills with Keith Hennessy + the Turbulence Team. A dance and interdisciplinary lab for dancers, physical actors and performance artists.
Velocity / 12-3PM
$35 / $60 both days
PERFORMANCE: Turbulence (a dance about the economy)
Velocity Founders Theater / 8PM
$20 / $12 students + seniors
SAT SEPT 22
Workshop: Keith Hennessy + the Turbulence Team
Explore improvisation and performance skills with Keith Hennessy + the Turbulence Team. A dance and interdisciplinary lab for dancers, physical actors and performance artists.
Velocity / 12-3PM
$35 / $60 both days
PERFORMANCE: Turbulence (a dance about the economy)
Velocity Founders Theater / 8PM
$20 / $12 students + seniors
SUN SEPT 23
Community Forum: Dancers + the Economy
Join Seattle dancers for a conversation on economy and community over coffee and bagels.
Velocity / 1-2:30PM
FREE
ABOUT TURBULENCE (A DANCE ABOUT THE ECONOMY)
“A glorious mess that’s shot through with enough rigor, humor, and heart to entertain and incite.“
“People lingered long after the show “ended,” electrified by this queer economy of magic.”
– Portland Monthly
Turbulence (a dance about the economy) is an experimental hybrid of contemporary dance, political theater and improvised happening. This collaborative performance is a bodily response to economic crisis, engaging the frictions between disaster capitalism, debt, precarity, propaganda, torture, war, magic and queer identity.
Instigated before the recent Occupy Wall Street actions, Turbulence is intended as both provocation and affirmation of the global movement for economic justice.
Turbulence is also an experiment in developing alternative modes of producing performance. Integrating new cast members (as generative collaborators) for each performance, the work resists fixed or predetermined outcomes. Improvisation and queer are both survival strategies and political tactics. Accumulating dances, images, texts, and tactics with each cast, Hennessy’s process was tested at venues in San Francisco, Stolzenhagen and Vienna in 2011. Velocity’s presentation of Turbulence is created with an international cast and Seattle guest artists Markeith Wiley and Joan Hanna.
// WATCH and excerpt from Turbulence >>
// READ an interview with Keith Hennessy at Impustanz >>
Keith Hennessy is an award-winning performer, choreographer, teacher, and activist regarded as a pioneer of queer and AIDS-themed dance. His awards include two Isadora Duncan Awards, a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie), and a Goldie Award from the SF Bay Guardian. Hennessy directs Circo Zero Performance. He has performed and led workshops around the world at Dance Theater Workshop, American Realness Festival (New York), Impulstanz (Vienna), and Yerba Buena (San Francisco).
Velocity’s presentation of Turbulence (a dance about the economy) was made possible by generous support from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Boeing Company, and the Western States Arts Federation with additional seasonal support from 4Culture, the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, ArtsFund, and The Seattle Foundation.
FEATURE Thoughts on Turbulence with out the Pressure of Landing – Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
