April 18–23, 2017
University of Houston
Houston Texas
The University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts announces the fourth annual CounterCurrent festival, Tuesday, April 18 through Sunday, April 23, 2017. CounterCurrent is a festival of performance, installation and ideas occupying a range of unexpected sites in the city of Houston. The festival is comprised of ten major contemporary and interdisciplinary works, including audio and video installations, live performances, and participatory events by artists from the Middle East, Europe, and the US. All CounterCurrent events are free of charge.
Works include:
Movement V: Ballroom, Kevin Beasley, in partnership with Project Row Houses. An original site-specific sculptural and sound installation, Movement V exists—visually and aurally—only with the movement of bodies and a physical engagement between visitors and the space. Based in Houston’s Third Ward in the Historic Eldorado Ballroom, the installation continues Beasley’s series of experiments in materiality and sound that explore the fading in and out of culture and the erasure of predominantly black cultural spaces. On April 22 at 8pm, Beasley will engage with the installation in a performance.
Stories of Refuge, Dictaphone Group. Following the stories of three Syrian refugees who fled the war to seek refuge in Munich, Germany, this video installation allows viewers to watch films in bunk beds like those at refugee camps. Dictaphone Group cofounder Tania El Khoury met with these refugees in Munich, gave each of them a discreet camera, and asked them to film a day in their life in the refugee camp. Interviews with the refugees about their journeys serve as the soundscape over the footage that they created, offerings viewers an intimate glimpse at the daily life of these individuals.
Farmhouse/Whorehouse, an artist lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Lili Taylor.
Bocanegra’s third lecture in a trilogy of performances, Farmhouse/Whorehouse uses text, song, costume, film, and photos to trace the lives of her grandparents on their small farm in La Grange, Texas, across the road from the Chicken Ranch, better known as “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”Through the lens of the farm and the brothel, a story emerges that connects the invention of the pastoral in art, the homesteading movement, hippie communes in the 1960s, and the idea of the prostitute in art and theater. The Mitchell Center presented the first and second performance in this trilogy: When a Priest Marries a Witch (CounterCurrent16) and Bodycast (CounterCurrent15).
Festival presenting partners include: Aurora Picture Show, The Brandon, The Catastrophic Theater, MATCH, Project Row Houses and others.
For more information about CounterCurrent and a complete schedule of events, please visit countercurrentfestival.org. Please note that space is limited and advance reservations are encouraged.
About CounterCurrent
CounterCurrent is a free festival of performance, installation, and ideas. Presented by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, CounterCurrent includes audio and visual installations, live performances, talks, and participatory events by artists from around the world. From large-scale spectacle to intimate interaction, CounterCurrent projects reflect the range of ways we view each other and the city around us. For more information, please visit countercurrentfestival.org.
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 in the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, the Mitchell Center commissions and produces new works, presents public performances and exhibitions, offers curriculum and scholarships, and hosts residencies with renowned visiting artists from throughout the world. The Center 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. For more information, please visit mitchellcenterforarts.org.
