Join us for the kick-off of the fall season of Sunday Service, our monthly performance series in our bar the Ready Room. Curator Alexis Convento invites Filipinx artists both from the homeland and the diaspora come together to reclaim, to decolonize, to (re)trace our roots.

“To decolonize is to tell and write one’s own story, that in the telling and writing others may be encouraged to tell their own.” —Leny Mendoza Strobel, “Coming Full Circle”

Artists:
Carlo Antonio Villanueva
Eli Tamondong
Goldie Poblador
Sugar Vendil
Jana Lynne Umipig

About the Curator
Alexis Convento is a Filipina-American producer, administrator and manager working within contemporary performance, and is founder and curator of the CURRENT SESSIONS, a platform for emerging and established movement-based artists. Her creative direction has led to sold out houses, close artist relationships, and the cultivation of new audiences with an enduring interest in connecting the performing arts, culture, and community. Additional curation includes La MaMa Moves!, Center for Performance Research’s Fall Movement, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and Gowanus Art + Production’s FIRST LOOK, among others. Alexis holds a BFA in Dance from Fordham University with the Ailey School. Alexis’ work seeks to activate new conversations between genres which strengthen the relationship between art production and community, doing so through her own practice as well as her commercial efforts. She welcomes inquiries from individuals and organizations whose work also seeks to connect art, culture and the public.

About the Artists

Christina Poblador, sometimes known as “Goldie”, was born in the Philippines and received her MFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is an artist, a scientist, a feminist, and an alchemist. Her work channels narratives from Philippine culture and is inspired by nature and personal history. She brings a new awareness to what is and what can be the possibilities of ecofeminism, sensuality and the politics of immigration and race in a global world. work.goldieland.com

Carlo Antonio Villanueva is a Filipino-American dance artist from New Jersey, now living and working in New York. He often works with friend and collaborator Miriam Gabriel to make performances, and is also a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. mimiandcarlo.com

Sugar Vendil is a New York-based pianist and multidisciplinary artist lauded for “leading the unlikely intersection of classical music and new fashion” (The New York Times). A second generation Filipino-American, Vendil grew up in El Sobrante, CA, a suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her artistic practice is strongly focused on rigorous discipline as a musician and multidisciplinary performance that integrates music, movement, and fashion, and unconventional approaches to the piano. Vendil was a 2017 Summer Labs Artist in Residence at National Sawdust and a 2016 Fellow in the Target Margin Institute for Collaborative Theater Making. Other residencies include Earthdance (E|MERGE Multidisciplinary Residency), the A-Z West Wagon Station Encampment, and Arts Letters & Numbers. She is the founder of The Nouveau Classical Project (NCP), a music ensemble that collaborates with artists such as visual artists, dancers, and fashion designers for its performances. sugarvendil.com

Eli Tamondong is a hybrid artist practicing and performing under the moniker Projectile Imagery. They have been curated by Dance New Amsterdam, Dixon Place, Movement Research at Judson, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Chez Bushwick, Gibney Dance, New York Live Arts, New Dance Alliance; published in SLAG Mag and Polychrome Ink; and posted on Instagram (@projectileimagery). They have been a member of the Dance/NYC Junior Committee (2014-2017), a Chez Bushwick Artist-in-Residence (2014), and a New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Artist (2015-16). Eli is studying Massage Therapy at the Swedish Institute. projectileimagery.me

Jana Lynne (JL) Umipig is a creator – a multidisciplinary artist who uses her talents and skills to create transformative artistic experiences. Her training is rooted in classical and physical theatre work, with formal training from New York University, The Claire Trevor School of the Arts at The University of California, Irvine and The Accademia Dell’ Arte in Arrezzo, Italy. Much of her career has been heavily rooted in collaborative based, applied and experimental theatre that focuses on human rights advocacy, art therapy/ healing connected to the development of her work around “For the Movement Theatre” and “Theatre as Spiritual Practice.” In particular, she seeks to elevate the narratives of Pilipina wom*n- as a reflection of her own life’s journey toward decolonizing, re-indigenizing and humanizing self. She draws her inspiration from being raised by strong wom*n in her family and by countless circles of sisterhodo that have lifted her throughout her lifetime including mentors and comrades from- The Center for Babaylan Studies, Damayan, Af3irm (Gabriela Network), Gabriela NYC, The El Puente Global Justice Institute, and Kababayan at UC Irvine. janalynnecreativeproductions.com

About Sunday Service
Taking place the first Sunday of each month, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of cross-disciplinary performances and presentations that brings together a multiplicity of views around a singular prompt, such as a question, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service centers works in progress, interdisciplinary endeavors, and diversity in format showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster the testing of ideas and critical discourse amongst peers.

Join us this fall for the return of Sunday Service, a free monthly series of live work across mediums in our bar, the Ready Room. The Fall season curators include: Alexis Convento, Jonathan Gonzalez, J. Soto, and Camilo Godoy. Each month’s artist lineup to be announced soon.

About Sunday Service
Taking place the first Sunday of each month, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of cross-disciplinary performances and presentations that brings together a multiplicity of views around a singular prompt, such as a question, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service centers works in progress, interdisciplinary endeavors, and diversity in format showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster the testing of ideas and critical discourse amongst peers.

Sunday Service Fall 2017 Schedule:
September 10, 7pm: Curator Alexis Convento
October 1, 7pm: Curator Jonathan Gonzalez
November 5, 7pm: Curator J. Soto
December 3, 7pm: Curator Camilo Godoy

About the Curators
Alexis Convento is a Filipina-American producer, administrator and manager working within contemporary performance, and is founder and curator of the CURRENT SESSIONS, a platform for emerging and established movement-based artists. Her creative direction has led to sold out houses, close artist relationships, and the cultivation of new audiences with an enduring interest in connecting the performing arts, culture, and community. Additional curation includes La MaMa Moves!, Center for Performance Research’s Fall Movement, SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and Gowanus Art + Production’s FIRST LOOK, among others. Alexis holds a BFA in Dance from Fordham University with the Ailey School. Alexis’ work seeks to activate new conversations between genres which strengthen the relationship between art production and community, doing so through her own practice as well as her commercial efforts. She welcomes inquiries from individuals and organizations whose work also seeks to connect art, culture and the public.

Jonathan Gonzalez is a choreographer and Bessie-nominated performer based in his native New York City. He has been a New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Artist in collaboration with EmmaGrace Skove-Epes, BAX/Dancing While Black Fellow under the direction of Paloma McGregor, Diebold Award recipient for Distinction in Choreography & Performance, Rema Hort Mann Foundation nominee, as well as a POSSE Leadership and Bessie Schonberg Scholar; he is currently a BAX/SUBMERGE! artist. He has performed in the works of Ligia Lewis, Cynthia Oliver, Isabel Lewis, Alex Baczyinski-Jenkins, Phillip Howe, Ni’Ja Whitson, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Grisha Coleman, among others. He is a graduate of Trinity College, Trinity Laban Conservatoire, and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.

J. Soto is a queer brown transgender interdisciplinary artist, writer, and arts organizer. He has curated and performed work for The National Queer Arts Festival (San Francisco), Links Hall (Chicago), as well as Vox Populi (Philadelphia) among others nationally. His collaborative writing project, “Ya Presente Ayer” can be found in Support Networks, Chicago Social Practice History Series (University of Chicago Press). His organizing projects include the Latinx Artists Retreat (LXAR), which he recently launched with a group of Latinx artists and administrators and the Latinx Artist Visibility Award (LAVA) for Ox-Bow School of Art in partnership with The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is also a recent Fellow of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Advocacy Leadership Institute (ALI). His recent writing can be found in Original Plumbing and Apogee Journal: Queer History, Queer Now Folio. He is currently Programs Coordinator for Equity & Inclusion Initiatives at Movement Research and Production & Access Coordinator at Eyebeam.

Camilo Godoy is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is concerned with the construction of political meanings and histories. His work engages with conceptual and choreographic strategies to negotiate questions that confront the politics of citizenship, imperialism and sexuality. Godoy analyzes and challenges past and present historical moments to imagine different subversive ways of being. He was born in Bogotá, Colombia and is based in New York, United States. He is a graduate of The New School with a BFA from Parsons School of Design, 2012; and a BA from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, 2013. Godoy is currently a resident at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) and was a 2015-2017 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence; 2014 Keyholder Resident, Lower East Side Printshop; 2014 Hemispheric New York Emerging Performers Program Fellow, The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, NYU; and 2012 Fellow, Queer Art Mentorship. His work has been presented at venues such as Center for Performance Research, New York; Judson Church, New York; La Mama Galleria, New York; Donaufestival, Krems; and Mousonturm, Frankfurt, among others.

Knockdown Center is pleased to present the New York premiere of The Three Matadores, a new piece by Chicago-based performance company Every house has a door, led by Lin Hixson, director, and Matthew Goulish, dramaturg.

The Three Matadores stages a short bilingual (English and Spanish) play embedded in the book-length poem The Presentable Art of Reading Absence (2008) by American poet Jay Wright. The performance unfolds in two acts: the first made up of four original solos by the performers – Sebastián Calderón Bentin, Stephen Fiehn, Tim Kinsella, and Anna Martine Whitehead – that introduce and respond to Wright’s text, and the second a physical realization of the play. Like much of Wright’s writing for theater, this play has never been staged, a detail indicative of the company’s ongoing interest in historically neglected subjects. The script incorporates Wright’s words exactly as written, including stage directions and a bracketing selection of the poetry. The choreography, under Lin Hixson’s distinctive direction, in a circular arena bisected by a long table, alternates between mathematical pattern permutations and intricate movements derived from bullfighting maneuvers, while the language oscillates between the speech of the matadors and the voice of the poetry. The Three Matadores offers a microcosm of Wright’s inventive work, written from the multi-cultural imagination, and uncovering the complex weave of quantum physics, numbers theory, African and American ritual, and emotion felt in solitude.

Performance Dates:

Friday, October 6 – 7:30pm
Saturday, October 7 – 7:30pm
Sunday, October 8 – 7:30pm

Do you have a performance, workshop, or series of events in need of a home? Send us your proposal before September 15th for consideration of our 2017-2018 programming! Short-term projects can take the form of temporary installations, dance, theater, readings, talks, screenings, etc. This open call does not limit scale, scope, or format of submissions.

Knockdown Center’s mission is to be responsive to the needs of cultural producers making experimental and cross-disciplinary work, and to provide a platform for in-depth inquiry from varying viewpoints across diverse formats. Through an open proposal process, we offer artists, curators, and organizers the freedom to challenge traditional notions of presentation and reception.

Deadline: September 15, 2017

Knockdown Center Proposal Guidelines
Please use the proposal guidelines below, refer to the floor plans to identify the space that best suits your project, and format the proposal in a single PDF and email it to mail@knockdown.center with the subject “Short-Term Proposal” or “Exhibition Proposal”

1. Project Description: In one page or less, clearly describe your project concept, all elements involved, and state why it is relevant to present at Knockdown Center.

2. Images: Please include 5 – 15 images of works included or representative of what will be included. For movement based work, please include video samples.

3. Installation plan: Describe how the project would be installed in Knockdown’s space. Clearly list all spatial needs, technical and equipment requirements, and other specific installation considerations. Include a layout of the project in space using the floor plan.

4. Timeline: Describe the full production timeline of your project including load-in, installation, tech, rehearsals, event times, and load out.

5. We often have overlapping events and programs in the building at the same time. Please consider the ways in which sharing the building may impact your project.

6. Expected attendance and ticket price, if applicable.

7. Budget overview: Please provide a detailed overview of the production budget. 8. Exhibiting artist info: Provide bios for all included artists.

9. Curator / Producer info: Give us a sense of your background and experience, including a sample of your relevant work experience.

PDF of Guidelines and Floor Plan here.

Video Jam, a U.K. based experimental film/music collective comes to Knockdown Center! This event pairs musicians with film-makers to explore the dynamic between live sound and moving image, responding to the musical, cultural and artistic influences of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The program spans a variety of genres including essay film, live 16 mm film performance, archive footage, cartoons, animation, and more – including several new commissions! The event is part of a larger project that will culminate at The Barbican center in London later this year.

About Video Jam
Video Jam is a unique event series which commissions musicians to compose and live perform original accompaniment for short contemporary film. We are committed to creating engaging events in interesting places which seek to challenge conventional ideologies within moving image and sound. Every programme features a variety of short film and video with a particular emphasis on experimental and independent work. For each, a different musical act or sound artist is selected to compose an original score of their own interpretation to be performed as a live accompaniment.

In addition to these signature ‘blind collaborations’, Video Jam is dedicated to commissioning, producing and presenting new moving-image and sound work. This ongoing project facilitates emerging to mid-career artist filmmakers and composers with the means to work together over an extended period of time, whose final pieces are then staged in collaboration with cultural partners across the UK and beyond. These have included events with FACT (Liverpool), the Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester), Manchester Science and Industry Museum, and a 3-part UK tour in collaboration with Slip imprint, supported by Arts Council England.

Initiated as a grassroots venture in January 2012, Video Jam has hosted over 45 unique and often site­-specific events including numerous commissions from international organisations, attracting consistently large audiences of up to and over 1,000. Featured in Time Out, i-D, a-n and The Quietus and shortlisted for a Sky Arts Scholarship in 2015, the events have cultivated an ever-growing network of over 380 local, national and international artists. Video Jam has showcased many first works by emerging regional talent, providing visibility within programmes featuring a diverse range of award winning artists such as Jeremy Deller, Hetain Patel, Dieter Moebius, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Meklit, Simon Faithfull, Soda_Jerk and Phil Solomon. Past events have featured films of 1 minute and 40 minutes spanning all genres, scored by a kaleidoscopic selection of musical acts: from electronic artists, contemporary classical composers and jazz singers, to spoken word poets, punk bands, opera, and everything in­-between.

www.videojam.co.uk

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Rose Kallal
Rose Kallal is a NYC based visual and sound artist. Her performances include immersive multiple 16mm film loop projections accompanied by her own electronic sound work using modular synthesis. Incorporating a wide range of technical processes, such as traditional animation techniques, video synthesis/feedback and computer animation, the 16mm film loops cycle at varying speeds to create a hypnotic nonlinear flow of repeating patterns and motifs. She has presented her work internationally at many venues, galleries and festivals that include MoMA PS.1 (NYC), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco), Center for Contemporary Art (Glasgow, UK), Museum of Contemporary Art Bologna, (Italy). Her sound works are released on UK electronics label We Can Elude Control, with forthcoming full length LP Perseus in summer 2017.

Kindah [2016] by Ephraim Asili
Shot in Hudson NY and Accompong, Jamaica, “Kindah” is the fourth film in an ongoing series of 16mm films exploring Asili’s relationship to the African Diaspora. Accompong, Jamaica was founded in 1739 after rebel slaves and their descendants fought a protracted war with the British, leading to the establishment of a treaty between the two sides. The treaty signed under British governor Edward Trelawny granted Cudjoe’s Maroons 1500 acres of land between their strongholds of Trelawny Town and Accompong in the Cockpits, and a certain amount of political autonomy and economic freedoms. Cudjoe, a leader of the Maroons, is said to have united the Maroons in their fight for autonomy under the Kindah Tree—a large, ancient mango tree that is still standing. Ephraim Asili is a filmmaker, DJ, and traveler whose work focuses on the African diaspora as a cultural force. His films have screened in festivals and venues all over the world, including the New York Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, San Fransisco International Film Festival, MOMA, MoMA PS1, LAMOCA, The Boston Museum of Fine Art, and The Whitney Museum.

scored by Micah Gaugh
Born in Colon, Panama, Micah Gaugh is a saxophonist, singer, keyboardist, composer, filmmaker and actor. He also produces and programmes, making beats for tracks and artists. He is most known for creating the genre of avant-pop with the release of the record “Everything” on Accidental Records in 2006. Micah has composed the modern opera Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights (Geneva, 2007) and a piece for the artist Rirkrit Taravanija featured in Il Postino di Tiempo (Manchester International Festival, 2007). He appeared and played in Matthew Barney’s Di Lama Lamina (MoMA, 2007) and a wrote a choral work entitled Noise Mass, commissioned by and performed at the Chiesa Rosa in Milan in 2008. He has also has represented the USA as a cultural ambassador to Suriname, Siberia and France. He has collaborated with artists across all genres live and in the studio including jazz, avant garde, pop, funk, rock and hip hop.

Unbroken-Unbreakable (VHS Diary) [2017] by J Triangular
J Triangular is a curator, experimental filmmaker, neon poet, drummer and musical promoter. Among her most recent collaborations are music videos with independent bands from NYC, and visual concerts with ABCNORIO. Performances of poetry and VHS include with “Miss expanding universe” (Ashley Yang-Thompson) in Powrplnt, Brooklyn, Hunter East Harlem Gallery. Her work explores the liberation of culture and counter-representations that challenge the imposed narrative, influenced by different teachers, magicians and healers, such as Jodorowsky, Genesis Breyer P Orridge, and the medicinal plants of the amazon. She is interested in the decolonization of the imaginary and the possibility of making and remaking oneself. For this event she has made a new film. She states: “Since my first experimental films I have based my work on poetry. For this special project I have unified the poetry of Basquiat (and prayers), with his influences; from William Burroughs to the legacy of the New York no wave music scene and the gospel Of San Juan, a favorite of his. Projecting VHS tapes on public walls of New York, this project seeks to revive the basic truth of cinema, concrete poetry, one flesh with night, collective psyche, transgression is a game. This is the story of a martyr artist who did not follow the rules, a neon poet, but above all a love story, swimming light – a new kind of religion, a VHS diary.”

scored by Coatie Pop
“I am moved by the kinds of tragic stories that keep my TV on at night. I express my fears through haunting melodies and hold on to the ideas that stream from my subconcious after I’ve drank too much coffee” Coatie Pop is currently living and dreaming in NYC.

More Grief [2017] by RUFFMERCY
RUFFMERCY aka Russ Murphy is a Animation Director based in Bristol. After cutting his teeth at MTV in the late 90’s as a promo producer he moved onto become a freelancer animator working for a variety of broadcasting networks and agencies before moving into the world of music videos full time around 2001. He has become known for his loose hand drawn animation style sometimes utilised over live footage and mostly within the genre of Hip Hop music.

scored by Natalie Galpern
Natalie Galpern is a vocalist, performer and sound artist from New York City. Her live performance work encompasses electro acoustics, improvisation, collected field recordings and extended vocal technique. Her work continues to engage with an interface designed for feedback built as part of her master’s degree in Sonic Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London. Natalie has performed at venues including the Southbank Centre, Whitechapel Gallery and Tate Britain in London, and at SculptureCenter, Trans-Pecos and the National Academy Museum in New York City.

Weekend at Basquiat’s [2013] by CHERYL
Remember that time you accidentally took a disco nap for 30 years, woke up with a beard, your lover was dead, the most famous artist you knew had transformed into a mannequin, and NYC had turned into a luxury shopping mall? We sure do. CHERYL invites you to take a seat in a time-traveling wheelchair. Put on your darkest sunglasses and get into the groove. Back when Manhattan was a real place and Brooklyn didn’t exist. Back when graffiti was cool, heroin was cheap, and crack was whack. Back when girls just wanted to have fun, people were dancing on the ceiling, and George Michael was straight. CHERYL is a video artist collective and dance party that explores the themes of mortality, mania, the feline-human connection, the limits of shoulders, the flammability of dollar-store hair extensions, and the staining power of fake blood. Through themes ranging from topical to bizarre, the CHERYLs revel in the joyous power of dance-induced psychosis/euphoria. CHERYL has been bringing its particular brand of FRESHMAGICK™ to New York City since colonial times, and has since acquired a dedicated cult following and media attention for over-the-top happenings involving outrageous costumes, exuberant dance moves, and participatory dance floor suicide.

scored by Nat Roe
From 2008-2014, Nat DJed a weekly radio program at WFMU. His program centered around a style of audio collage that drew influence from turntablism and dancehall Clash style as well as the cut-up and collage techniques of artists like Brion Gysin and Christian Marclay. Nat has published a 7″ with Kakutopia records, a c-20 tape on Spleencoffin records, and a CD with Tanzprocesz records. Before getting involved in collective-centric art spaces, Nat was active as a music journalist. He has written for publications such as Wire Magazine, Signal To Noise, Rhizome, Fader, Noisey, and was the editor of WFMU’s blog for several years. Nat Roe is currently the Executive Director of Flux Factory, a Long Island City hub hosting an artists-in-residence community which collectively guides the direction of a prolific, multidisciplinary public exhibition and events gallery.

N.Y.C (No New York) [1980] by Rick Liss
No New York is a portrait of New York City circa early 1980s. This is a record of that extremely fertile time for creativity. The film was originally set to Laurie Anderson’s “For Electric Dogs.’ Rick Liss was born and raised in New York City. Mentored by de Kooning as a teenager, he studied at Cooper Union art school and graduated in 1976, immediately establishing himself in the burgeoning loft life of downtown Manhattan. For the past thirty years he has focused more on painting whilst working as a prop-master on television.

scored by Val-Inc
Haitian electronic music composer/percussionist/turntablist, Val Jeanty evokes the musical esoteric realms of the creative subconscious. She incorporates her African Haitian Musical traditions into the present and beyond, combining acoustics with electronics and the archaic with the post-modern. Her “Afro-Electronica” installations have been showcased in New York City at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Village Vanguard and internationally at SaalFelden Music Festival in Austria, Stanser Musiktage in Switzerland, Jazz à la Villette in France, and the Biennale Di Venezia Museum in Italy.

Langua Lesson [2015] by James Maurelle
Langua Lesson is a transcript exploring the power dynamics in language via, the body, gender, ethnicity, and class. James Maurelle was born in California, his practice explores sculpture, video, and photography, recycled materials are his physical and digital primes. He is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute with a degree in film, design & technology and holds an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. He resides in Philadelphia.

scored by Kate Mohanty
Kate Mohanty is a freelance saxophonist residing in Brooklyn, where she began performing improvisational solo sets in 2013. GP Stripes released Kate’s debut solo recording, The Double Image, via cassette in April 2017. Impose Magazine wrote of The Double Image: “…the record is an exercise in a sort of controlled chaos, an eventful and unpredictable machination of a singular, skillful vision. It’s riddled with mood, exuded by someone who proficiently knows how to create and manipulate it, and with such limited means.”

Disney’s The Skeleton Dance [1929] Following the success of “Steamboat Willie”, Disney’s first animated short featuring both Mickey Mouse and synchronised sound, the studio began to produce an experimental series of shorts known as “Silly Symphonies”. The Skeleton Dance [1929] was the first in this decade long series, a surreal and innovative black-and-white short. Film historian J.B. Kaufman noted that the shorts’ mixture of music styles and orchestration was also profoundly cutting-edge. “People may not realize what an innovation it was to mix these compositions from different sources with abandon.” The series had high profile admirers in Russian director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein and Spanish painter Salvador Dali, who referred to Walt Disney as “The Great American Surrealist.” (The two would eventually collaborate.) Later, Walt Disney remarked that the Silly Symphonies were a place where the artists could play and tinker. “They started as an experiment,” Walt said. “We used them to test and perfect the color and animation techniques we employed later in full-length feature pictures like Cinderella, Snow White, and Fantasia.” The clearest through-line to the Silly Symphonies is Fantasia, released less than two years after the last Silly Symphony premiered. Both the short film series and Fantasia were built around music, had somewhat abstract conceptual cores, and featured a host of technological breakthroughs.

scored by Ariana van Gelder
Ariana van Gelder is an experimental composer and theoretical physicist living in New York City. She composes music for piano, prepared violin, bowed glockenspiel, pressure-driven mylar sculpture, etc. Her current practice revolves around live vocal loops and semi-improvised compositions, as well as scores and sound installation for video, sculpture, and interactive virtual works. She has exhibited at various institutions, including Transfer Gallery (Brooklyn), Galleria Harmaassa (Finland), and Colombo Art Biennale (Sri Lanka).

This month’s Sunday Service, Knockdown Center’s free monthly performance series, is hosted by Same As Sister/Briana Brown-Tipley and Hilary Brown. Titled Pairings in Horror: The Visceral & The Visual Impact, the evening will feature live and digital performance responding to a narrative within the horror genre, matching artists who will collaboratively experiment, improvise and create. Pairings include Lamy Istrefi Jr.  with Leo Genovese + Mersiha Mesihovic/CIRCUITDEBRIS and Stacy Grossfield Dance Projects + Gil Sperling, and more TBA! Plus a secret text reading by Rie Yamaguchi-Borden.

Same As Sister was formed out of a proposition to see if it was possible to construct a horror dance – a choreographic vocabulary that truly evokes feelings of suspense and surprise – for the viewer to experience. Since then, the collective’s explorations within the horror/terror genre have transformed into a cross-disciplinary approach to performance-making, that in the words of Jess Barbagallo, “creates a wholly new universe on-stage that revels in a perverse celebration of the ominous.” For Pairings in Horror, Same As Sister invites teams of artists to open a door to this universe by responding to a secret text that will be disclosed to the audience only at the end of the evening. Each pair will utilize live and digital elements to emphasize the sensory pleasure that best represents their collaboration between disciplines. Set in a haunted house, the artists’ unique interpretations of the shared text will become rooms into their uncanny and unpredictable imaginations, perhaps even nightmares.

Same As Sister/Briana Brown-Tipley and Hilary Brown (S.A.S.) is a New York City based performance collective founded in 2013 by choreographers Briana Brown-Tipley and Hilary Brown. Before this joining of creative interests, the sisters, who originate from Toronto, Canada, graduated from École de danse contemporaine de Montréal (LADMMI), and have performed for a variety of artists including Peggy Baker, Candice Breitz, Doug Elkins, Philippa Kaye, Mike Kelley and Jillian Peña. Same As Sister collaborate in the fields of contemporary dance and theater, and experimental music and film/video to explore the complexity of human behavior and its inherent uncanniness. Their cross-disciplinary works have been presented at Centre d’Art Marnay Art Centre (2017 Artist Program Residents), Movement Research and Bailout Theater at Judson Memorial Church, CRAWL at 22 Boerum Place, BRIC Arts | Media House (2015 BRIClab Residents), New York Live Arts (2014-2015 Fresh Tracks Residents), Triskelion Arts, Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Chen Dance Center. sameassister.squarespace.com

Lamy Istrefi Jr. is a New York City based Jazz drummer/percussionist, composer and conductor, originally from the Republic of Kosovo. Istrefi Jr. attended the University of Music and Dramatic Arts Graz (KUG) in Austria, before relocating to the United States. He is currently a member of Grammy award-winning saxophonist, Joe Lovano’s Classic Quartet, for which he has toured internationally to perform at such prestigious festivals and venues as the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, the PDX Jazz Festival, Blue Note Milano, Bimhuis Amsterdam and the Bergamo Jazz Festival, among others. Istrefi Jr. also collaborates with a diverse and notable group of musicians for his own artistic projects which include the Lamy Istrefi Jr. Trio and Quartet featuring NEA Jazz Master, Dave Liebman, and the Musical Minds Orchestra, a large experimental ensemble that he founded in 2010. smallslive.com/artists/1284-lamy-istrefi-jr/

Leo Genovese, originally from Venado Tuerto, Argentina, studied classical piano at the National University of Rosario before moving to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music, where he graduated as a Professional Music Major in 2003. Genovese has performed and recorded with renowned musicians such as Hal Crook, Darren Barrett, George Garzone, Francisco Mela, Joe Lovano, Bob Gulloti, Phil Grenadier, Dave Santoro, Chris Cheek and Ben Monder. From 2005 he toured internationally and recorded with bassist and vocalist, Esperanza Spalding. His first album, Haiku II, was released in 2004, and was followed by Unlocked in 2008 and Seeds in 2013. facebook.com/leogenovesemusic/

Mersiha Mesihovic/CIRCUITDEBRIS is a space for interdisciplinarity, radical dance and community engagement which Mesihovic initiated in 2011 to formally conceptualize her collaboration with artists across disciplines. She has collaborated closely as a producer, dramaturge, performer/choreographer with artists such as Karen Bernard, Reggie Wilson, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko and James Brandon Lewis. Her work has been presented internationally, and received support from New Dance Alliance and New York Foundation for the Arts. Mesihovic currently resides in New York City, where she is actively developing her unique movement method, M-BODYMENT, and teaches at a wide range of institutions and cultural organizations in the United States and abroad including Gibney Dance Center, Peridance Capezio Center, and Wits University in Johannesburg and TUT University in Pretoria, South Africa, where she is a frequent guest lecturer. circuitdebris.org

Stacy Grossfield was born and raised in Lakeland, Florida, and has choreographed and performed in New York City since 2003. Her most recent work, hot dark matter, was presented by JACK in March of 2016. Her previous works include Fur & Tulle and Red, Pink, Black – the latter for which she received a Manhattan Community Arts Fund grant in 2013. She has shown work at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, BRIC Studio, Center for Performance Research, CATCH, Dance Theater Workshop, Food for Thought at Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Roulette and through AUNTS at various venues including Arts@Renaissance, NADA Art Fair and the New Museum. Grossfield is a choreographer for hire and has recently choreographed the one-man-show, Quiet, Comfort, a Hoi Polloi production at JACK, as well as the Okkervil River music video “Judey On A Street”. She was a 2008-2009 Fresh Tracks Artist-in-Residence at Dance Theater Workshop. She has served on dance panels in NYC and taught a feedback class at Brooklyn Studios for Dance called Show & Listen. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance from SUNY Purchase. stacygrossfield.com

Gil Sperling is a multimedia artist, performance maker and video designer. He has created short films and video installations, video design for the stage and multimedia performances. Sperling is a graduate of the School of Visual Theater in Jerusalem, and holds a BA in Psychology and Philosophy. He spent a year as a fellow at the Cologne Academy of Art (KHM). As a multimedia performance creator his works include Shulamis or the Well and the Pussycat at the Target Margin Yiddish Lab, New York (2012), Sotto Voce, a multimedia musical theater project presented in Berlin (2011) and Ruhe Sanfte, a musical-visual performance presented at the Israeli Opera (2005). Noted video design work includes City of Glass at the New Ohio Theater (2016), Trade Practices at HERE Arts Center (2014), Uriel Acosta at The Chocolate Factory (2014) and Don Giovanni at the Cologne Opera (2010). His video installation work has been presented at the SVA Gallery in New York, Hellerau Arts Center in Dresden, Germany, Kampo Museum in Kyoto, Japan and Ein-Harod Museum in Israel. Sperling was a Nominee for an NY Innovative Theater Award (2016) for Video Design in City of Glass, a Planet Connections Award Winner (2012) for Outstanding Use of Projections and Multimedia in Trafficked and Winner of the Operare 11 Prize for New Musical Theater Productions (2011) for Sotto Voce. gilsperling.com

Rie Yamaguchi Borden born in Ehime, Japan, has been a part of New York City’s vibrant Jazz and free-spirited music scene since 1999. Regardless of the medium she is working in, she has the desire to express most honestly and soulfully all that life has to offer. Yamaguchi-Borden is currently a member of the Musical Minds Orchestra led by Lamy Istrefi Jr., where she collaborates with a variety of artists who are simultaneously engaged in opening their personal and global awareness to delve into something much deeper creatively. She continues to cook up schemes as a Jazz vocalist and drummer in NYC.

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About Sunday Service
Sunday Service is a curated series of short-form live performances across mediums. Taking place the first Sunday of each month in the Ready Room, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of in-progress works, performances, and presentations, anchored by a framing principle such as a question, proposition, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service encourages works in progress and interdisciplinary endeavors showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster experimentation and critical discourse amongst peers.

This month, Knockdown Center’s free monthly performance series Sunday Service is hosted by Andrea Arrubla for the BABZ Fair. The evening will reflect and celebrate the legacy of the seminal poet Essex Hemphill established among contemporary literary and visual artists with Tiona Nekkia McClodden, James Allister Sprang, Peter BD, and Karmenife X.

Bios

Tiona Nekkia McClodden is a visual artist, filmmaker, and curator whose work explores, and critiques issues at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and social commentary. McClodden’s interdisciplinary approach traverses documentary film, experimental video, sculpture, and sound installations. Themes explored in McClodden’s films and works have been re-memory and more recently narrative biomythography.

Peter BD is a writer on the internet.

Karmenife X is an artist, writer and stand-up comedian from Harlem, NYC. Karmenife is most known for her photo project entitled “Reclamation” where she reclaimed fraternities for survivors of sexual violence. Karmenife graduated from Wesleyan University in 2016 and in 2015, she published a memoir entitled “Sea Salt and Sandalwood” through Wesleyan’s Gorilla Publishing Collective. Karmenife currently lives in New York City and is working on a collection of short stories revolving around her experiences with online dating and an art project entitled “Put Him In His Place,” which combines her artwork with harassing messages she has received on online dating sites in an effort to reclaim space, power, and voice. Karmenife has also begun an illustrious career as a stand-up comedian whose work focuses on uplifting marginalized groups that are often targeted in the white, male, cis dominated comedy world. Karmenife plans to continue creating and working to make more safe spaces for survivors of sexual assault, especially survivors of color.

James Allister Sprang is an artist and writer currently based in Philadelphia. A graduate of The Cooper Union and an MFA candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, Sprang works as an interdisciplinary concerned with race and the embodied/disembodied voice. Working through both time and objects, Sprang’s work exists in gallery spaces, theater spaces and the spaces generally found between the ears. James has spoken, shown and performed in institutions such as the Apollo Theater, The Brooklyn Museum, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art,  Pioneer Works, Abrons Arts Center and the Public Theater and The Kitchen.

About the curator
Andrea Arrubla is a Colombian interdisciplinary artist living in Brooklyn, NY. Her artwork revolves around issues of personal histories, institutional critique, and language through accessible mediums that confront professionalized methods of art making. Arrubla was the Student Liaison of the Bruce High Quality Foundation University (‘14-’16) where she focused on genuine and inclusive community building in the arts. Her first solo exhibition took place at New Release Gallery; New York. She has exhibited work in group exhibitions at Essex Flowers and various educational institutions across the United States. Arrubla has been featured in print in OSMOS Magazine, The Third Rail, and Packet Biweekly.

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About BABZ FAIR

The 5th annual BABZ Fair presented by BLONDE ART BOOKS is a weekend long event that features small press art and poetry publishers, and individual artist projects, alongside a program of performance, readings, and workshops. BABZ Fair will be taking place Friday, June 2 through Sunday, June 4, 2017.

Over the years the BABZ Fair has grown dramatically and this year the fair will feature art books and zines by over 100 publishers and artists from across the country.

This year we are collaborating with artist Andrea Arrubla to produce the weekend programming. The full program schedule, including a new expanded program series, and workshop series, will be announced shortly.

About Sunday Service
Sunday Service is a curated series of short-form live performances across mediums. Taking place the first Sunday of each month in the Ready Room, a guest curator is invited to organize a salon style evening of in-progress works, performances, and presentations, anchored by a framing principle such as a question, proposition, theme, or formal structure. Sunday Service encourages works in progress and interdisciplinary endeavors showcased in a lo-fi environment to foster experimentation and critical discourse amongst peers.