Spring 2020 curatorial program

Events

Su Wen-Chi: Work in progress
Thursday, January 23, 7pm
Choreographer Su Wen-Chi is in residence at EMPAC to develop a new work exploring how live interaction between a dancer, EMPAC’s Wave Field Synthesis Array, and light might open possibilities for embodying the principle of gravity.

The Robotic Imaginary: The Human & the Price of Dehumanized Labor by Jennifer Rhee
Wednesday, January 29, 6pm
Scholar Jenny Rhee visits EMPAC to present her book, The Robotic Imaginary: The Human & the Price of Dehumanized Labor, which argues that robotic and AI systems reflect historical gendered and racial devaluations around labor.

In Our Time by Gerard Byrne
Saturday, February 8, 11am–6pm
Tuesday, February 11, 11am–5pm
Wednesday, February 12, 11am–9pm
Thursday, February 13, 11am–8pm
Friday, February 14, 11am–10pm
Gerard Byrne’s video installation In Our Time unfolds, in real time, the inner workings of a recording studio during the golden era of analog radio, however, the linear timeline of the broadcast slowly falls apart, producing a surreal uncertainty around the fixity of time.

Luanda-Kinshasa by Stan Douglas
Saturday, February 8, 12–6pm
Presented theatrically for the first time, Stan Douglas’s six-hour jazz epic Luanda-Kinshasa telegraphs a group of contemporary musicians back to the 1970s to improvise a jazz-funk recording session at a reconstruction of The Church, the legendary Columbia 30th Street Studio.

A Hundred Schools of Thought: Screenings of Onyeka Igwe, Ruchir Joshi, and Trinh T. Minh-ha
Wednesday, February 12, 6pm
Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Shoot for the Contents renders “the real in the illusory and the illusory in the real” and anchors the triple-bill program A Hundred Schools of Thought, which also includes Ruchir Joshi’s Tales from Planet Kolkata and Onyeka Igwe’s Specialised Technique.

What Are We Doing Here Together?: Screenings of Eric Baudelaire and Tamar Guimarães
Friday, February 14, 7pm
What Are We Doing Here Together? is a double-bill program that exemplifies the collaborative process of filmmaking featuring Eric Baudelaire’s newly released documentary Un film dramatique and Tamar Guimarães’s O Ensaio / The Rehearsal.

Native Intelligence / Innate Intelligence by Christopher K. Morgan
Thursday, February 20, 7pm
Contemporary-dance choreographer Christopher K. Morgan is at EMPAC to develop Native Intelligence / Innate Intelligence, a new work that incorporates modern dance, hula, Hawaiian chant, and live music to examine the location and meaning of home and belonging.

Michelle Ellsworth: Work in progress
Thursday, February 27, 7pm
Choreographer Michelle Ellsworth and her technicians will work with the EMPAC team in an exploratory collaboration expanding on her (often humorous) work that skirts the disciplinary perimeters of dance, theater, film, and carpentry.

Sondra Perry: Lecture performance
Thursday, March 5, 6pm
Sondra Perry’s engagement with consumer image-making technologies produces artworks that reveal the calibration, protocols, and algorithms inherent in these devices as a way to critically reflect on new technologies of representation and remobilize their potential.

The Glow That Illuminates, the Glare That Obscures by Nina C. Young / American Brass Quintet
Thursday, March 19, 7pm
Nina C. Young’s The Glow that Illuminates, the Glare that Obscures explores Renaissance architectural and musical practices through new compositional forms and strategies by using EMPAC’s Wave Field Synthesis Array to allow the audience to follow the resonance of sound through architectural space.

Performing Waria: Genre as Technology for Shaping Trans-Identity in Indonesia by Paige Morgan Johnson
Tuesday, March 24, 6pm
In this talk, performance scholar Paige Morgan Johnson discusses her decade-long research on contemporary Indonesian performance practice, queer cabaret scene, and waria (an Indonesian term for transgender women).

Chameleon: A Biomythography by Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
Thursday, April 2, 7pm
Artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is at EMPAC for the world premiere of Chameleon: A Biomythography, a multimedia live artwork that explores: “the fugitive realities and shapeshifting demands of surviving at the intersection of Blackness, feminism, and queerness in contemporary America.”

Inheritance by Ephraim Asili
Thursday, April 9, 7pm
Ephraim Asili’s Inheritance weaves histories of the West Philadelphia–based MOVE Organization, the Black Arts Movement, and dramatizations of the life of the filmmaker when he was a member of a Black Marxist Collective.

Translating the Atrocities of Our Past, Composing the Language of Our Future by Seth Parker Woods
Friday, April 17, 7pm
Seth Parker Woods performs new works on the theme of “translation” and the search for understand for cello and electronics composed by Freida Abtan, Monty Adkins, Ryan Carter, Nathalie Joachim, and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay.

Lady M (work in progress) by Heartbeat Opera
Friday, May 1, 7pm
Heartbeat Opera tells the story of Lady M in a reordered, 90-minute version of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth, through a contemporary lens featuring six singers, six instrumentalists, and extensive electronic sound design.

Alexa Echoes by Amanda Turner Pohan
Friday, May 8, 7pm
Alexa Echoes is a chamber opera by visual artist Amanda Turner Pohan in collaboration with composer Charlie Looker and choreographer Dages Juvelier Keates tracing the myth of Echo and up to Amazon’s Echo for Alexa, highlighting the history of women’s devocalization and disembodiment.

Residencies
Bora Yoon: Artist residency
The UNDO Fellowship
Amanda Turner Pohan: Alexa Echoes
Heartbeat Opera: Lady M
Lesley Flanigan: Artist residency
Nina C. Young: The Glow That Illuminates, the Glare That Obscures
Steve Reich Recordings: Mivos Quartet
Maria Chávez: Untitled commission
Ni’Ja Whitson: The Unarrival Experiments
Michelle Ellsworth: Artist residency
Christopher K. Morgan: Native Intelligence / Innate Intelligence
Su Wen-Chi: Artist residency

Commissions
Ana Navas: Untitled commission
Anna Craycroft: Only Breath, Words
Beatriz Santiago Muñoz: Dicen que cabalga sobre un tigre (They say she rides a tiger)
Clarissa Tossin: Untitled commission
Ephraim Asili: The Inheritance
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko: Chameleon: A Biomythography
Maria Chávez: Untitled commission
Natasha Barrett and Marc Downie: Innermost