A festival in Houston, Texas.
April 14–19, 2015
For festival locations and to reserve free tickets, click here.
CounterCurrent is a festival of experimental art occupying a range of unexpected sites in the city of Houston, Texas. CounterCurrent includes audio and visual installation, live performance, and participatory events by artists from around the world. Programming partners include Aurora Picture Show, Blaffer Art Museum, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, DiverseWorks, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Project Row Houses, and She Works Flexible, as well as the arts departments at University of Houston. Also featured is a series of Cocktails + Concoctions created by local restaurant partners in connection with festival programming.
Ht/X
Luke Savisky
The festival opens with Austin-based multimedia artist Luke Savisky’s Ht/X, a live video spectacle on the underside of downtown Houston’s Allen’s Landing Bridge. The giant arch at once becomes a huge movie montage against the night sky; a watery reflection of the life along the river, a window through time and possibly even a passage to an inner world.
In Walking Distance
Maya Zbib + Omar Abi Azar, Zoukak Theater Company
A participatory performance taking the form of a promenade, Beirut-based Zoukak’s new work traverses the University of Houston campus, following the steps of a series of women warriors involved in various forms of resistance across history and in mythology.
Islamic Violins (Ed. II)
Ibrahim Quraishi
Islamic Violins is an installation that contrasts grainy mini-video and saturated surround sound with the striking image of suspended violins. The “low-tech” explosion of violins and the survey of the debris created by the onslaught have the ugly noisiness of media interfering with the contemplation of beauty.
I perceive the other and lose myself
Sofia Cordova & Autumn Knight
Montrose gallery She Works Flexible pairs artists Sofia Cordova and Autumn Knight in I perceive the other and lose myself, an exploration of erasure, memory, laughter and survival explored through multimedia installations and a series of performances.
If Ever I Would Leave You
Janet Biggs
Janet Biggs offers a performance based on heroic individual stories of struggles with Alzheimer’s disease. Presented in collaboration with the UH Blaffer Art Museum and independent curator Janet Phelps, If Ever I Would Leave You looks at loss, desire, chaos, and control in the face of a fading sense of self.
johnbrown
Dean Moss
Steeped in a childhood of grassroots organizing and pitched campaigns, Dean Moss draws from an intimate and varied history with activism to create johnbrown, a dark, wry meditation on the legacy of the white 19th-century abolitionist. The result of three years of research, johnbrown layers live choreography and text with video performances of an original script by Thomas Bradshaw and a score by Stephen Vitiello.
Cry You One
Mondo Bizarro & ArtSpot Productions
Cry You One is an outdoor, processional performance journey focused on the effects of Hurricane Katrina and its relevance to other communities such as Houston. The show marries the spirit of New Orleans music and storytelling with the Gulf Coast landscape of Houston and its surrounding regions.
Bodycast
Suzanne Bocanegra with Lili Taylor
Inspired by the two teenage years artist Suzanne Bocanegra spent in a body cast due to scoliosis, Bodycast is an inventive theatricalization of the ubiquitous “artist talk.” Performed by film, television, and stage actress, Lili Taylor, the story of Bocanegra’s Bodycast takes on a new life, with the phantom presence of the artist herself looming in the sidelines.
Ten Tiny Dances®
The closing celebration of CounterCurrent 2015, Ten Tiny Dances® is a performance series dedicated to fostering inventive dance and providing an accessible performance experience for a diverse audience—on a four-by-four foot stage. Ten Tiny Dances® was created in Portland, Oregon, in 2002 and continues to be produced by founder Mike Barber and others, with permission.
About the Mitchell Center
The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts is dedicated to interdisciplinary collaboration across the performing, visual, and literary arts. Based at the University of Houston, the Mitchell Center commissions and produces new works, presents public performances and exhibitions, offers curriculum and scholarships, and hosts residencies with renowned visiting artist. It is home to the Mitchell artist lecture, an annual event featuring a pioneer in contemporary art-making, as well as CounterCurrent, an annual spring festival of new performance. The Mitchell Center forms an alliance among five departments at UH: the School of Art, Moores School of Music, School of Theatre & Dance, Creative Writing Program, and Blaffer Art Museum.
