Artists: Carlo Antonio Villanueva, Eli Tamondong, Goldie Poblador, Jana Lynne Umipig, Sugar Vendil
September 10, 2017
For the fall season premier of Sunday Service, curator Alexis Convento invited 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”
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.
Video by James Tate
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Knockdown Center’s MEDIA page is an ongoing collection of audio, video, writing, and ephemera produced by our arts programming. It serves not only as an aural and visual index of the diverse artistic activities that occur within the space, but also as a resource for artists, writers, curators, and researchers who may be interested in learning more about the practitioners that come through our doors. As a primary source, documents housed within the MEDIA page have been minimally edited and largely unmodified. Audio files link to our Soundcloud channel, where curator conversations, exhibition walkthroughs, panels, and poetry readings can be heard individually, or as select playlists.