twi-ny talks

TWI-NY TALK: CATALPA FOUNDER DAVE FORAN

Dave Foran partied with Snoop Dogg at Vivo Rio last September and will do so again later this month on Randall’s Island

Catalpa Festival
Randall’s Island
Saturday, July 28, and Sunday, July 29
Weekend passes $179.99, day passes $99.99
www.catalpanyc.com

Dave Foran is hoping to achieve what no previous event promoter has done before in New York. Over the years, such outdoor music gatherings as the Fleadh, Lollapalooza, Across the Narrows, and All Points West have each failed to maintain a lasting presence, something the Dublin-born Foran is planning on doing with the Catalpa Festival. Taking place July 28-29 on Randall’s Island, the two-day inaugural festival boasts a diverse lineup of live acts, including the Black Keys, TV on the Radio, Umphrey’s McGee, Hercules and Love Affair, and Zola Jesus on Saturday and Snoop Dogg, Girl Talk, Matt and Kim, Cold War Kids, and Matisyahu on Sunday, among many other groups. In addition, Catalpa will host such special installations as Arcadia’s fire-shooting “Afterburner” and the Silent Disco Tent, where people can dance to wireless music beamed into their headphones. A former professional rugby player whose father was a promoter as well, the twentysomething Foran started his promotional company, Frisky, in 2010, with the goal of putting together “mind-blowing events.” The University of Sydney graduate recently discussed the genesis of Catalpa with us as the festival grew near.

twi-ny: What was the selection process like to come up with the roster of musical and visual artists participating in the festival?

Dave Foran: I didn’t want to pigeon-hole Catalpa in its first year and really wanted to create a diverse and slightly eclectic assortment of artists that I really feel had quite a bit of substance, their own style, and collectively a personality for the festival that I hope will be attractive. I did not set out to create a pop festival at all, but you do need some big names to get everyone interested. The Black Keys were my first-choice band for Catalpa. I really think they are amazing, and their recent explosion has been built on a solid foundation of developing a following year on year from creating incredible blues-rock; to me that is the epitome of what I would like Catalpa to represent.

Dave Foran started Frisky in 2010 with the goal of throwing “mind-blowing events”

twi-ny: How did the decision to hold it on Randall’s Island come about?

Dave Foran: There really are not that many large green-field sites in NYC that can hold a suitable capacity and which are tried and trusted. In my view it really is the best of the bunch. Governors Island is landlocked and a logistical nightmare. Liberty State Park is in Jersey and that has its own problems with getting people over there from Manhattan and Brooklyn; people don’t like going across that water too much!!! Liberty State Park is also an old landfill with terrible drainage, and I think that is where a lot of problems with All Points West came from, as they were very unlucky with the weather.

twi-ny: What is the most difficult part of putting together a festival like Catalpa in New York City?

Dave Foran: The hardest things I have found so far is trying to make noise about a new event like this in a place so busy and difficult to get heard like NYC. You either need to be very clever about it or be willing to shovel over huge amounts of cash to get your brand out there. Also, booking a first-year festival as a relatively minor event producer from Ireland is not easy at all. I am not Live Nation or AEG, and a lot of talking was necessary to get some of the big artists I wanted.

twi-ny: Over the years, New York City has seen a slew of outdoor festivals come and go. What do you think the key is to make Catalpa work where others have failed?

Dave Foran: I am aiming for Catalpa to have a much more eclectic, left-field, and experience-based slant to it than other regular bar and stage events. I really believe that what keeps people remembering a good festival is not just the live acts they saw but also the subsidiary experiences they had. I am trying to bring this heightened dimension to Catalpa through elements such as Frisky’s Church of Sham Marriages, where a pimp pastor will marry couples, groups, threesomes, whatever, in an outrageous ceremony. There are also things like the Silent Disco and the High Times Reggae Stage, surrounded by hammocks where famous HT writers will be giving speeches on related topics. There are a lot of art installations, various site artistry, the world’s smallest nightclub (you need to see this!) etc. In my view it is these elements which also give a festival a life of its own and ultimately lead to its longevity.

TWI-NY TALK — BRENDA ZLAMANY: 888

Brenda Zlamany and her daughter, Oona (far right), visit a police station in Dagangkou as part of their Taiwan journey; “Often in a new town the police station was a good place to set up the ‘studio,’” Zlamany explains (photo courtesy Brenda Zlamany)

888: PORTRAITS IN TAIWAN
Taipei Economic and Cultural Office
1 East 42nd St. between Madison & Fifth Aves.
Monday – Saturday through June 30, free, 9:00 am – 6:00 pm (9:00 -11:00 am Saturday)
212-317-7352
www.taiwanembassy.org
brendazlamany.com

Last summer, Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Brenda Zlamany traveled throughout Taiwan with her Mandarin-speaking ten-year-old daughter, Oona, visiting thirty cities, towns, and aboriginal villages where Zlamany used a camera lucida to draw many of the residents, then made watercolors of them as she and Oona participated in the local culture. Brenda and Oona’s experiences are on view in the multimedia exhibition “888: Portraits in Taiwan,” which features oil paintings, behind-the-scenes videos, Zlamany’s sketchbooks, an informative, oversized map detailing their journey, and photographic projections of her subjects holding their portraits. The first part of her series “The Itinerant Portraitist,” the two-floor display is on view through the end of the month at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office on 42nd St. Zlamany, whose previous painting series include “Bald Artists,” “Tibetans,” “Infants,” and numerous animals, discussed her working process, her relationship with her daughter, and more, shortly after the exhibition’s opening reception.

twi-ny: How did the idea for “888” come about?

Brenda Zlamany: For fifteen years I’ve painted portraits of my artist friends. Many of us paint ourselves and one another. In some ways you could say we’re professional posers. Our gaze is external. Very look at me. In 2007, I took a trip to Tibet with my daughter during which I shot thousands of photos of monks and nomads with the intent of making oil paintings when I returned. When I hung the completed Tibetan portraits in the studio beside twelve recent portraits of American artists, the artists appeared to be reaching out to the viewer, while the viewer was pulled into the portraits of the Tibetans. This contrast between “external” and “internal” gazes seemed worthy of further exploration. Taiwan seemed a good choice for such an inquiry because its indigenous cultures are somewhat removed from Western ways of thinking.

I also wanted to work in a Mandarin-speaking country because my daughter, Oona, is a fluent Mandarin speaker and could be my interpreter. She is very sweet and outgoing. We worked as a team. People were interested in us as a family. This gave us access to remote areas. People showed us a lot of hospitality.

I set out to make 888 paintings in 90 days, a reasonable challenge of 10 paintings a day. I chose 888 because 8 is associated with prosperity in Chinese culture. I told people that if they took part in the project, they would get rich. That made it easy to convince people to pose.

twi-ny: What did you look for in potential subjects?

Brenda Zlamany: I looked for a wide range of people: young, old, diplomats, tribal leaders, policemen, firemen, teachers, artists, street cleaners, fruit sellers, doctors, and hotel workers. But I learned that what I looked for and what I found in my subjects were not the same thing. When you paint someone, you make discoveries. For instance, I was staying in a convent in an aboriginal village, and five Taiwanese tourists were also there. They were middle-aged women. At first I didn’t think they were as interesting as people from the village, but I decided to paint them anyway. In doing so I learned about the depth of their friendship by observing how they posed and how they responded to one another’s portraits. The experience was very moving.

twi-ny: Although you drew men, women, and children of all ages, the show features oil paintings only of young men. What was the reasoning behind that decision?

Two of Zlamany’s subjects pose with their portraits in “888” exhibit at TECO (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Brenda Zlamany: I was impressed with the beauty, grace, style, and directness of these young aboriginal men. There is so much creativity in how they present themselves. In many villages, one encounters them engaged in activities like break dancing, sports, computers, or just hanging out together. (The women of the same age are elsewhere and are nowhere near as self-consciously styled.) They have a lot of potential but are also at risk. And I identify with them. My life was like that early on, and I’ve been lucky. They are at the beginning of life, when there are so many unknowns. I wonder how it will go for them. But I understand this particular moment. It’s funny — as I painted people from cultures unfamiliar to me, I tried to figure out who in those cultures was me. It is said that all portraiture is ultimately self-portraiture.

twi-ny: Why did you choose to use the camera lucida?

Brenda Zlamany: The camera lucida is an instrument for drawing that was invented during the Renaissance. It enables the artist to view the subject and a superimposition of the subject on paper simultaneously. This allows for a more active involvement between the artist and the subject than does photography alone. The instrument demands direct observation, a rapport in which the subject can respond to the artist verbally or nonverbally and inform the work. For me, part of the electricity of portraiture is in the flip that occurs when the subject looks at the completed painting and becomes aware of the artist looking at him or her. We both reveal ourselves. The camera lucida enhances this exciting connection.

twi-ny: You traveled with your ten-year-old daughter throughout this journey. What do you think you learned about each other that you might not have known before?

Brenda Zlamany: I was amazed and pleased at how seriously she took her role as “head hunter” and interpreter. There were days when I thought I couldn’t make the goal, and she would set out to find great subjects to encourage me.

Because she’s fluent in Mandarin and I speak barely a word, we experienced a role reversal. Often I didn’t know what was going on as she negotiated for lodging, food, transportation. In this loss of power, I got to see what it’s like to be a kid who’s led around. I also got to see how she handles being in a power position. Mostly she was kind and fair. Although it could be frustrating for me.

We’d traveled as a team ever since she was an infant, so I already knew that she was cheerful, easygoing, fun, adventurous, and charismatic. People in Taiwan liked her, and this opened many doors. They were as interested in her as they were in the paintings.

But I discovered a major difference between us one morning when she woke up in tears and said “Mommy, we have no plan!” I replied, “We don’t need a plan. We have opportunities!” I was comfortable without a clear itinerary. One thing would lead to the next. She found that difficult to accept.

twi-ny: “888” is the beginning of your new series, the Itinerant Portraitist. What have you got planned for chapter two?

Brenda Zlamany: I’m looking for funding to travel to Southeast Asia to paint portraits of people, particularly girls, who are victims of human trafficking. Because I’ve discovered that there’s such a positive effect from “888,” I want to take it a little further and see if the work can actually make a difference in a situation where it’s really needed.

TWI-NY TALK: SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS

Southern Culture on the Skids will be serving up culinary delights at the annual Big Apple Barbecue in Madison Square Park

Friday, June 8, Maxwells, 1039 Washington St., Hoboken, 201-653-1703, $15, 9:00
Saturday, June 9, Big Apple Barbecue, Madison Square Park, free, 4:30
www.scots.com

For nearly thirty years, Chapel Hill’s Southern Culture on the Skids has been keeping southern culture alive, serving up its unique brand of rockabilly surf country punk on such records as Voodoo Beach Party, Dirt Track Date, Plastic Seat Sweat, Liquored Up and Lacquered Down, and The Kudzu Ranch. Its latest swampy, bluesy collection, Zombified (September 2011, Kudzu), continues the band’s wicked sense of humor and playfulness, featuring such songs as “Undertaker,” “Bloodsucker,” and “Idol with the Glowin’ Eyes.” Guitarist Rick Miller, drummer Dave Hartman, and bassist Mary Huff will be at Maxwell’s on Friday night, followed by a hotly anticipated free performance at Saturday’s Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in Madison Square Park. Miller recently filled us in on some of the band’s culinary plans for the weekend.

twi-ny: The Big Apple Barbecue is famous for its ridiculously long lines, and host Danny Meyer is perhaps equally famous for making everyone, including his relatives, wait on lines and get no special treatment. Do you have any idea what the food situation will be for you?

Rick Miller/SCOTS: I don’t know. We usually get a free lunch ticket and are left on our own to wander about. Hard to take a dip in the meat fountain before you play, though. Those smokey burps halfway into the set can slow a fellow down!

twi-ny: You’re from North Carolina, which will be represented by smokemaster Ed Mitchell and his whole hog. Is that where we’ll find you before or after your set? What other barbecue are you planning on checking out at the block party?

SCOTS: Oh yeah — in the Carolina Q is where we’ll be. When it comes to the other smoking meat — brisket is the ticket!

twi-ny: You’ll be playing to an enormous crowd on Saturday, most of whom will be covered in dripping sauce and stale beer and stuck on long lines away from the music area. Do you plan on tailoring your set to this very different kind of devil’s stomping ground?

SCOTS: Might start with “Come and Get It (Before It Done Gets Cold)” or “Too Much Pork for Just One Fork.” “Pig Pickin’” will be on the table as well, and of course “8 Piece Box” for the fowl fans. And for dessert we’ve got “Day Old Banana Puddin’.” Don’t forget to bring your wet naps and moist towelettes — it might get messy!

twi-ny: You have a smokin’ new album out called Zombified. What kind of southern food and drink goes best with it?

SCOTS: Deviled ham and moonshine!

twi-ny: You’ll also be at Maxwell’s in Hoboken on June 8, where you’ll be playing to a smaller but more SCOTS-dedicated audience. What have you got planned for that show?

SCOTS: We will prepare a rock-and-roll hot bar! A buffet of greasy grooves — the surf-and-turf sounds for downwardly mobile socialites!

TWI-NY TALK: RAQUEL CION

The Lounge at Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
Friday, June 8, free, 9:30
212-219-0736
www.dixonplace.org

Last Friday night, Raquel Cion packed the Lounge at Dixon Place for her latest show, Gilding the Lonely, billed as “An Evening of Cabaret” that explores being single in the big city. Accompanied by 3 Teens Kill 4 drummer Bill Gerstel and downtown pianist Lance Cruce, Cion, wearing a dazzling, form-fitting gown designed by David Quinn, goes through a repertoire of carefully chosen, mostly deep-cut ballads by David Bowie, Prince, the Rolling Stones, and Dwight Yoakam (!) while sharing personal stories about dating actors, being scarred for life by The Giving Tree, and needing to replace a lightbulb. Cion will be back at Dixon Place on June 8 at 9:30 for an encore presentation of Gilding the Lonely; get there early if you want to grab a seat.

twi-ny: You played to a packed house last Friday. Are you happy with how things went?

Raquel Cion: Very much so! It was a blast. The audience was so present. The Lounge at Dixon Place is such a great place to hone a show. Ellie Covan and her staff are very supportive of new work while giving artists such freedom. You work it out and just show up and do it. There’s a wonderful sense of trust in that. In 2010, I work-shopped another cabaret-esque show, Cou-Cou Bijoux: Pour Vous, in the Lounge. This past fall I ran into Ellie and she asked if I wanted to bring anything to the Lounge. I told her I had been throwing around some ideas for another cabaret and within a week we had booked the space even before anything on the creative side was created. Nothing like a deadline!

So, yeah, it was a blast. Working with Lance, Bill, and our amazing director, Hillary Spector, has been really great and, well, challenging. It’s NYC and we all have such packed schedules, so rehearsals were very limited. Bill did the first incarnation of the show this past December, so we had a context for the material. All of us come from such different backgrounds, stylistically and aesthetically. Bill’s a full-on kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll drummer but is incredibly sensitive to the emotional arc of the whole show and really provides a backbone to it. Lance comes from a more traditional cabaret background and has been valiant in dealing with much of the song selection, which required him to play by ear and make huge jumps between different styles of music and get them to flow together. Hillary and I come from the theater world. It’s quite the mix. So we had to find, and quickly, where those worlds intersected. I think those differing perspectives serve the show really well. Like with any show, you create your own language. Thankfully, the audience really could understand and connect deeply with our vernacular.

twi-ny: Your show deals with various aspects of loneliness. How do you think being lonely in New York City compares to loneliness in other places?

Raquel Cion explores loneliness in nontraditional cabaret show at Dixon Place (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Raquel Cion: Hmmm . . . I’ve lived some other places and uh, yeah, I think being lonely in NYC is different. Though loneliness is universal, no one is immune. But there is something about feeling lonely in New York that has its own particular flavor. Sometimes it feels like an everlasting gobstopper in how it can change flavor and how you gotta just suck it (up). We’re constantly in relationship with others, be they familiar or not. We’re so thrown together, and each one of us has such drive, be it personal, professional, or, hell, just getting on the train. The constant information of “others” for me can increase that feeling of loneliness. It’s perhaps that compare/despair thing that the twelve steppers speak of, that wanting that our wonderful but sometimes overwhelming city can set up for us or bring out in us. And it’s particular, what we want. Strangely enough, even though I have been wrestling big-time with these feelings of loneliness, I am fierce about getting time to be alone. I think that’s a New York thing, too. Carving out our particular world within the worlds of this city and, well, finding who can inhabit that world intimately with us isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially as one gets older. I don’t mean to sound trite, but I don’t think I’m alone in this.

twi-ny: You sometimes perform under your real name, Raquel Cion, and other times as your alter ego, Cou-Cou Bijoux. What are the differences between the two?

Raquel Cion: When I speak of Cou-Cou Bijoux it’s like she is her own person. She feels that way. To backtrack a bit, I’ve always loved to sing but was mostly an apartment singer. Yeah, it encompassed much more than the shower. Cou-Cou Bijoux was created with Katherine Valentine for her show The Va Va Voom Room. Coming as I said before from a theatrical background, singing from a character was much easier and got me singing in front of people. Which due to some horrible posttraumatic-college-voice-class-syndrome hadn’t happened in a long while. Cou-Cou was that character that let me be a singer because she is a singer and, well, she’s also a hot mess, so as she would say in her French accent, “everything is possible.”

So singing as myself has been a process, one that is still revealing itself to me in beautiful and unexpected ways. I still approach song from an acting perspective; that’s where it translates to me. Telling the story. Connecting emotionally. Singing as me is still a bit terrifying but incredibly satisfying. When I was in the process of creating this show and was flipping out about its structure, etc., a friend of mine said, “Why don’t you ask Cou-Cou about it? She knows how to put a show together.” Okay, now I just sound schizophrenic.

twi-ny: Although you refer to the show as “An Evening of Cabaret,” it has a decidedly rock-and-roll aesthetic, with cover versions of songs by David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Tom Waits, and Prince, among others. What do those artists bring to the loneliness table?

Raquel Cion: Damn, you found me out! Yeah, it’s not a traditional cabaret. I don’t know if I’d know how to do that, actually. I’m a ridiculously huge Bowie fan. His voice, his music, his presence in the world — see, told you — just immediately comfort me on such a deep level. So, when I’m feeling lonely or pretty much any feeling, Bowie both sends me and grounds me. In terms of that “no one is immune from loneliness” thing that I mentioned, all these great songwriters are able to sink down into those feelings and we go with them. When choosing songs for the show, they broke down into a few categories for me: those songs that present a vision of happily ever after, those songs that drive you deeper into loneliness, and the songs where there’s an equanimity in regard to the very human experience of loneliness. The songs actually encompass a few styles; there’s pop, rock, R&B, punk/wave, country, and a show tune, to name a few. They’re some of the songs I love and turn to when I’m feeling lonely. I’m very moved by the quality of singers’ voices. I’m also a sucker for melody and a good modulation. If I connect to the sound of someone’s voice, that’s pretty much it for me; I’m in and in for life.

twi-ny: Who are some of the other artists that have influenced you?

Raquel Cion: Wow, there are so many influences. Did I mention Bowie? (Tee hee.) Seriously, the list is endless and can go from things like Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam to Vladimir Nabokov. I’m a bit of a magpie.

twi-ny: Is it possible to be covered in more glitter than you were last Friday night?

Raquel Cion: As I said, I’m a bit of a magpie. I love sparkly things! But to answer your question, yes, yes, yes! There can always be more glitter. Just ask a Dazzle Dancer.

TWI-NY TALK: JACK FERVER

Jack Ferver’s latest show, TWO ALIKE, examines the plight of abused queer youth (photo by RicOrnel Productions)

JACK FERVER & MARC SWANSON: TWO ALIKE
The Kitchen
512 West 19th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
May 17-19, $15, 8:00
212-255-5793 ext11
www.thekitchen.org
jackferver.org

“Jack’s an extremely, if obsessively, dedicated creator,” says composer and sound artist Roarke Menzies of dancer, writer, and choreographer Jack Ferver. “There’s an exacting quality to what he makes.” In such works as Rumble Ghost, A Movie Star Needs a Movie, Swann!!!, and I Am Trying to Hear Myself, the New York City-based Ferver has explored obsession, gender and sexuality, the cult of celebrity, the American dream, and the creative process itself through an inspired mix of text, music, movement, and humor. His latest piece, Two Alike, a collaboration with visual artist Marc Swanson that features an electronic score by Menzies, is a solo performance that examines abused queer youth from the perspective of both a child and an adult. Originally a copresentation of the nonprofit DiverseWorks Art Space and the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, Two Alike is now being presented at the Kitchen May 17-19. We corresponded with the amiable and personable Ferver shortly after meeting him at New York Live Arts, where he was seeing his friend John Jasperse’s Fort Blossom revisited 2000/2012.

twi-ny: Two Alike arrives at a time when the abuse of queer youth and bullying in general is front and center in the news. How did the show come about?

Jack Ferver: Marc and I met in 2008 and he saw some of my work (he has pretty much seen all of it by now) and told me he loved it and I did a studio visit and fell in love with his work. It opened a dialogue for us about how we make our work, why we make our work. Of course, that question led back to our childhoods, which seemed to be the best first collaboration. As I worked on the piece, however, the lonely quality of being in a room by myself for hours every day brought up all those early fantasy acts from a very isolated childhood. I was intensely abused by my peers growing up and it was lonely and terrifying. I created worlds by myself to escape and/or confront what was happening to me. And so that early quality of “play” came up and out as I worked on the solo. It was organic and honest and indeed does come at a good time for me to say something about this issue that I feel strongly about as an artist.

twi-ny: At NYLA last week, we spoke briefly about the It Gets Better Project and the responsibility LGBT adults have to LGBT youth. What do you see as the critical issues in that dynamic?

Jack Ferver: What I was talking about was hope, and when you get to have it. Children get to have hope. I had to believe there was somewhere better I would get to when I was a child. I wouldn’t have survived if I didn’t have that. However, I don’t believe in hope as an adult. Adults need to be in reality. Children are killing themselves as a result of ignorance and hatred. Adults who have suffered as children may not be doing so well themselves. That’s the reality. As adults we are responsible, so what are we going to do about it?

Ferver collaborated with visual artist Marc Swanson on TWO ALIKE (photo by Marc Swanson)

twi-ny: We were at NYLA to see John Jasperse’s remarkable restaging of Fort Blossom. Both of you regularly challenge audiences in the way you explore issues of gender identity and sexuality. Would you agree?

Jack Ferver: I can see that. I donʼt function in categorical thought. Martha Graham (my dance mom) quotes Empedocles in [her autobiography] Blood Memory: “For I have been, ere now, a boy and a girl, a bush, a bird, a dumb fish in the sea.” Artists are the stomachs of society. We digest the indigestible. That means we explore all terrains. Gender and sexuality roles are assigned or taken in hopes of a sense of self, as a branch of the ego. And the ego begins with “Me, not me.” As an artist I make my work so that people donʼt feel as lonely as I have felt. Therefore my work expands into something more akin to “I am you.”

twi-ny: You have a wickedly delicious sense of humor. Where does that come from?

Jack Ferver: My mother.

twi-ny: You have playfully skewered such popular films as Poltergeist, Notes on a Scandal, and Black Swan. Do you have plans to take on any other movies or pop-culture icons?

Jack Ferver: Actually, I leave a few days after closing Two Alike for the MANCC residency to start work on All of a Sudden, which I am creating with my dramaturg/associate director Joshua Lubin-Levy. It is loosely inspired by Tennessee Williamsʼs Suddenly Last Summer and explores the similarities between the artist/dramaturg and the patient/therapist relationship. It will go up in 2013 at Abrons Arts Center. Of course, it was a play before the film, but having played Cleopatra this past year [in Me, Michelle], I feel I am being haunted by Liz in some way.

TWI-NY TALK: JOHN JASPERSE

John Jasperse revisits FORT BLOSSOM at New York Live Arts this week

FORT BLOSSOM REVISITED (2000/2012)
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
May 9-12, $15-$30, 7:30
May 11, 10:00 pm show added by popular demand
212-691-6500
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.johnjasperse.org

Manhattan-based dancer and choreographer John Jasperse speaks eloquently about his profession both on- and offstage. For more than twenty years, the Bessie Award winner has been challenging and engaging audiences with complex productions that cleverly combine movement, music, visuals, and text in unusual ways, never taking the easy way out. Although he usually performs in his own pieces, he’ll be on the sidelines this week when he brings an updated version of his 2000 work, Fort Blossom, to New York Live Arts. An intellectual and personal exploration of the limits of the human body, the gaze of the viewer, and the effects of time, Fort Blossom was originally performed at the Kitchen by Jasperse, Miguel Gutierrez, Parker Lutz, and Juliette Mapp; the expanded Fort Blossom revisited features Ben Asriel, Lindsay Clark, Erika Hand, and Burr Johnson, with music by Ryoji Ikeda, lighting by Stan Pressner, and costumes by Deanna Berg. There will be a preshow talk with Mapp on May 9 and a discussion following the early show on May 11 with members of the cast and crew; in addition, a bonus late-night 10:00 show on May 11 has just been added by popular demand. A smart, funny, and deeply introspective artist, Jasperse shares his fascinating creative process in our latest twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: What made you want to go back and reexamine Fort Blossom at this time?

John Jasperse: I wasn’t planning on revisiting this work. I have rarely remounted old repertory; I’m more interested in making new work. The occasion to do so came out of an invitation from Lisa Kraus, programmer at Bryn Mawr Presents, who wanted to have my work as part of their 2011–12 presenting season. When it became clear that a new work wasn’t possible, she asked me if there was any work that I wanted to revisit. I immediately thought of Fort Blossom. Very quickly the idea emerged to not only remount the work as it was but to substantially expand it. Subsequently, I contacted Carla Peterson at New York Live Arts to join in the adventure. I have long felt that Fort Blossom was an initial gesture that didn’t actually fully get finished.

Fort Blossom was originally conceived as a work-in-progress towards the first work I made for BAM, which was later called Giant Empty. Fort Blossom was made at a very special juncture that I would be hard pressed to describe concretely. It was made with Miguel Gutierrez, Parker Lutz, and Juliette Mapp, a group of dancers whom I had consistently worked with for a number of years at that point. We rehearsed Fort Blossom for less than two months and presented it at the Kitchen in May of 2000. Then we had a break for the summer. When we returned to rehearsals in the fall to continue work on Giant Empty, it gradually became clear that the “special juncture” of the group had ended and that it was the beginning of the dissolution of that group, that those dancers were getting ready to move on to other things. Giant Empty was the last project I made with Miguel and Parker; Juliette made one more, a duet project called just two dancers. So Giant Empty took a turn of sorts, and it became about our history together in a way — about things coming together and things falling apart.

In the process and also in part in response to the idea of doing my first work for a larger proscenium venue, the simplicity of the design of Fort Blossom got left behind as well as the starkness of the contrasts in the work in favor of an evolving visual environment and a more complicated tapestry where ideas were being approached from multiple angles. I remember a moment of crisis at the end of the process of Giant Empty where there was a discussion in the group about whether or not the men’s duet from Fort Blossom still belonged in Giant Empty. I remember thinking and saying aloud that it represented the last vestige of what I originally wanted the work to be, and as such, it was too problematic to remove it — that it would feel like some sense of me was being removed from the work if I took that choice.

Of course, that is silly, since Giant Empty was also made by me in collaboration with others. I have always felt that it is more interesting to respond to circumstance, to acknowledge and take advantage of what is actually happening rather than to willfully deny that reality and try and thrust some other thing upon the present.

But that willingness to accept things “as they are” is tricky, in part because things aren’t often just or only as they appear at first. In truth, things are always many different ways, all at the same time, so there is also practice in choosing what to align yourself with that is manifest in the present. To speak of how this played out in Giant Empty, to say that things are falling apart, places the focus on their eventual separation and dissolution, to energize that aspect of a potential future in the present. There is also the possibility of looking at the same situation and marveling at the fact that these seemingly different, separate entities are miraculously floating in a dialogue with one another that is perfect just as it is right now, and celebrating that instead of projecting some perceived inevitable fall from grace upon them. The shifts in how we see something (in how we perceive a body, a relationship, or the present moment) are clearly manifest as such in Fort Blossom, and I think after all these years, I have finally realized that there is a profound aspect of hope embedded in Fort Blossom, and in its simplest terms, it is a hope for a multiplicity of connectivity that isn’t compartmentalized and exists in a space beyond shame.

So much emphasis gets placed on the naked men, but it is very important to remember that they cohabitate a space with clothed women. The four figures are together with the simple contrast throughout the hour. The difference (which is initially a difference of division) remains throughout the work, but there is a way in which it becomes both relevant and irrelevant, and I think this is key to the work.

Bessie Award winner John Jasperse speaks openly and honestly about the multiple sides of dance (photo by Chris Taggart)

twi-ny: What have you discovered about yourself and the work in revisiting it?

John Jasperse: I think this work has again taught me something about the power of hope. I would be remiss to not mention something here about aging. I was originally in this work and chose to recast it without me in it. I thought long and hard about the young body vs. older body. I have been concerned that I would be criticized for not being in it this time around, for casting it with younger men. I was clear that redoing Fort Blossom with me and a noticeably younger man would add a whole other dimension to the work that I felt would complicate matters without knowing what to do with this complication. When we made Fort Blossom, it was not with a notion of an idealized body; quite the contrary, it was with the bodies that we had which happened to be of a certain age. The idea to recast the work with peers of my own age did occur to me, to have our bodies reflect the passage of time, but I wasn’t able to complete the picture in my mind of who this would be. And some of the dancing in the second half of the work was challenging for me at the time twelve years ago and would be even more challenging for me now.

So I chose to work with people who were roughly the same age as we were then. Doing it this time around with a younger cast than my current age and being a director from outside, not a dancer in the work, I was concerned that I would be shifted into a role of voyeur. But again, this brings me back to a practice of how you look at something, of what aspect you invest in. And I have found that this can help define both how your experience it and how others experience your intention and your presence in that role. In Fort Blossom revisited (2000/2012), I have really been able to step up to the plate as a director in a way that I have seldom felt in making a new work, because I understand from memory what this terrain is; I’m not trying to invent it all from ether. So while we are trying things, it is as if we have a script for a play and we are playing with how we might interpret it. Or we are developing a scene that is missing and needed by the preexisting context. So I’m more easily able to say what I want because the field is much more delimited than in a totally new work. Contrary to feeling like this is stifling, I have noticed what a relief that is to others to be directed in that way, and I’ve wondered how this experience will color my going back into the studio on new work, where there isn’t a “preexisting script” of sorts.

twi-ny: You’re one of the busiest dancer-choreographers out there; in the last few years alone, you’ve done Becky, Jodi and John at the former Dance Theater Workshop, Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat Out Lies at the Joyce, Misuse Liable to Prosecution and Canyon at BAM, and now Fort Blossom revisited (2000/2012). Are you just constantly going nonstop? I’m getting a picture of you just running and running and running around, like you do in Canyon.

John Jasperse: I’m not sure that I’m any busier than any other dance artist. It is not an easy profession. I am aware of a balancing act, which could also be described as a stretching of bringing together circumstances that don’t naturally meet. That tension of the stretching is likely shared by any dance maker trying to make work today, and certainly by any artist working in New York City. It takes a lot of stamina, or perhaps a better word is “tenacity,” to keep that going. But I feel like I’m a dance artist/choreographer and I want to be doing that right now while I have some vibrancy in that. It is important to find ways to regenerate, and it is important to know that the well can run dry. I’m aware that I’m not so good at pushing back to make the space that I need for regeneration, and I’m aware that can take a toll on the work. I’m also aware that you as an individual are the only person who can take that responsibility on, as the machine of nonprofit arts production is hungry and it must be fed, so there is enormous momentum pushing towards working 24/7.

twi-ny: In regard to nonprofit arts production, several years ago at a post-performance talk you very openly and honestly discussed how difficult it is to make a living as a dancer in New York City. Are things getting better or worse these days?

John Jasperse: I worry that my dealing with these issues and trying to talk openly and honestly about them sounds like I am whining about my situation. I am incredibly grateful for the luck and good fortune that I have had as a dance maker in being able to do what I do. I feel very fortunate to have people interested in the worlds that I create, and I am grateful that this recognition has allowed me to keep working.

I feel that there are shifts in the current climate that ease some of the above pressures and shifts which are more challenging from a pragmatic standpoint. Doris Duke Charitable Trust just announced their first in a series of substantial unrestricted grants for performing artists, US Artists has developed a fellowship program for artists which is filling a gap made in part by the decrease in individual artist funding when the NEA stopped funding artists directly. Many of these opportunities are one-time grants. They create substantial support in a delimited period but don’t/can’t address the ongoing concerns of sustaining a practice over a long period of time.

I would like to see justice in general in the world. I’d like to think that the work that I make is participating in this greater collective effort. Since money is our primary mutually agreed system of valuation, I would like to see more ethics reflected in how money gets spent in the domain of culture. A budget is a value system, and while I have to accept some level of what value others place on things (including the value of my own work to them), I also feel that I need to be proactive in asserting my own values and ethics in budgets, which I am at least partially in control of.

twi-ny: When you do get a chance to slow down and take a step back, what kinds of things do you like to do when you’re not dancing or choreographing?

John Jasperse: I’m still trying to figure that out. I have some energy over the last years in gradually trying to make a calmer living space. I think this is partly trying to create the space for the slowing down to occur in.

TWI-NY TALK: MIKE WATT

MAY DAY 2: MIKE WATT + FRIENDS
(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Wednesday, May 2, $20, 7:00
212-505-3474
www.lepoissonrouge.com
www.threeroomspress.com

One of the original DIY punks, Mike Watt has been a musical fixture for more than thirty years. Beginning with the Minutemen and continuing with such bands as fIREHOSE, the Secondmen, the Unknown Instructors, the Stooges, and a series of solo concept albums, Watt has played the bass like no one else. The longtime San Pedro resident has just released his second book, On and Off Bass (Three Rooms Press, May 2012, $25), a collection of photographs of the harbor town he so dearly loves paired with short excerpts from his diaries, what he likes to call spiels. On May 2, Watt will gather with a bunch of his musical friends for a special show at (le) poisson rouge, performing as Hellride East with guitarist J Mascis and drummer Emmett Jefferson “Murph” Murphy III of Dinosaur Jr, along with surprise guests; he will also read from and sign copies of the new book. We recently spoke with Watt by phone about San Pedro, D. Boon, photography, the internet, and mothers in a wide-ranging conversation that revealed Watt to be a gregarious, deeply thoughtful man who loves to laugh and use the word “trippy.”

twi-ny: You’ve just published On and Off Bass, which is filled with peaceful images of the sea, nature, sunrises. What does being on the water mean to you?

Mike Watt: That time of day, the crack of dawn, is almost like Pedro is mine. It’s not like I own it, but I’m the only one around except for that nature you’re talking about. Being in the kayak, that feeling of the sea, it’s a trippy feeling.

twi-ny: The sunrises are beautiful.

Mike Watt: With the bass, sometimes accidentally I find stuff, but usually I have to work on it. But with this thing, you can’t set up these things. You just gotta be ready to capture it when it happens. It’s a different kind of thing about expression. The same thing on the bicycle. I’m not in charge of the sun and the ladder and all. They come together the way they do, and if I’m lucky and ready, I can try to get it.

twi-ny: On the cover of the book, you have just gotten out of the water after having jumped into the ocean on New Year’s Day. How cold was it?

Mike Watt: Yeah, the Polar Bears. Well, we’re in California. I have a friend who does the Coney Island one; that’s crazy. Last year I think it was about fifty-eight. But if you’re not acclimated to it, it’s still a heart attack.

twi-ny: You’ve lived in San Pedro since you were ten. What is it about San Pedro that keeps you there?

Mike Watt: Forty-four years now. Part of it is, I think, from all the touring. So when the bungee cord snaps back, ya know. . . . Being a harbor town, I really like. All of my music history’s here. I met D. Boon here, and that pretty much was the biggest life changer for me. It’s kind of like Malibu with hammerhead container cranes. They’re a strange mix. We’re a working town next to the ocean and cliffs, so we have a lot of nature for a twelve-million metropolis. It’s a mixture of different things. [Charles] Bukowski’s last fourteen years were here, and he picked it out of all the towns, he was telling me. He liked the feel of it, the town and the people here. It may be something about that with me too mixed in with these other things I just told you.

twi-ny: Your photos show unexpected sides of San Pedro.

Mike Watt: One trippy thing is, I guess San Francisco is like this too, but we’re on a peninsula, so we actually face east, for being on the West Coast, so that’s why there are all those pictures of sunrises. We don’t get sunsets here. A lot of people tell me that they didn’t know about this industry. I think we’re third only to Hong Kong and Singapore as the biggest ports in the world. They don’t think of that. NoCal people think of Hollywood. They think that California is actually a big huge farm state. No one thinks of that. San Pedro’s a fucking harbor town. I mean, this is where most of the people work. My Secondmen band, both those guys [Pete Mazich and Jerry Trebotic] are longshoremen. I’m actually hipping people to things they don’t know about. New York City used to be a harbor town, but it all changed. Maybe that’s gonna be in the future of Pedro, I don’t know.

twi-ny: On May 2, you’ll be playing a special show at (le) poisson rouge. What do you have planned for that night?

Mike Watt: It’s something I did twelve years ago. You know about this sickness that almost killed me? It’s actually what my second opera is about. [The Second Man’s Middle Stand details Watt’s life-threatening perineum infection in 2000.] That’s when I last played with them like this. It’s to celebrate this book coming out. In a way, the book is not just mine. It’s a collaboration. I didn’t pick the pictures. I didn’t pick the spiels. I felt I needed some objectivity. It seemed like it would be just too heavy-handed making a thing of myself.

twi-ny: So it was curated for you.

Mike Watt: Laurie Steelink picked the pictures, and Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges from Three Rooms Press picked the poems and the spiels from the diary.

twi-ny: The text and photos work really well together.

Mike Watt: I’m very grateful to them. They did a good job. They really cared. In a way, it’s like them taking a picture of what I’m showing them myself. It’s a neat thing. Maybe if I did another book, I would . . . I don’t know. It’s kind of weird. I’m a little more secure about working the bass than cameras and diaries and stuff. But both of these things were presented to me. I didn’t really come with this thing and solicit people for it. People gave me the opportunity, sort of like D. Boon: “Hey, you wanna make a band?” To me, ya know, I’m so close to it, I feel like a fucking dork, like a learner. But I’m into being a learner.

twi-ny: You mention your parents a lot in the book.

Mike Watt: Did you ever see the We Jam Econo thing? The mas were big-time important for the Minutemen. They were really into this stuff. Maybe not the movement ― they didn’t understand that so much. They thought of it as art.

twi-ny: Were you thinking about it that way?

Mike Watt: [Laughs] D. Boon could have been. And I met my best friend, Raymond Pettibon, who’s an artist. So there’s this kind of art thing. You know, these are working-class ladies . . . It was pretty open-minded of them to support us like that. I think Pops was more like, “What the fuck?” But the moms were really into it. Every now and then, my sister will take my mom to come see me play. She was worried a little bit in my early twenties ― “What are you gonna do for a living?” I think she wanted me to be a lawyer.

twi-ny: In March, you and George Hurley played the songs of the Minutemen at ATP. How did that go?

Mike Watt: We played in England, yeah. Oh, man, we practiced and practiced, and when it came down to it, Georgie was so nervous. Georgie’s a really strong guy and shit, but it was trippy. But I was proud to be with him. He said it was very emotional for him to play with me. I’m doing it again with him, but with Ed Crawford, to do two weeks of fIREHOSE gigs. We haven’t played together in eighteen years. We’ve practiced a week now. And in January, the whole month, I recorded the fourth Unknown Instructors album with George. So this is the third time with George Hurley in 2012 that I got to be with him musically.

twi-ny: The two of you are very connected.

Mike Watt: I’ve played with him fourteen and a half years, if you count Minutemen and fIREHOSE. He’s a really fucking happening guy.

Mike Watt plays Central Park with Four by Floor in August 2010 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: You said that he was nervous about the ATP gig. What about you?

Mike Watt: Yeah, I was nervous too. [Laughs] I mean, the way we thought about it was, we can’t have another dude in D. Boon’s place. So we had to shoulder all that stuff without a guitar. It was emotional. Georgie asked me to pick the songs, so I picked a lot that Georgie wrote. Some that were so much D. Boon, like “Corona” and “This Ain’t No Picnic,” we didn’t even try. . . . It was intense. I’m so proud we did it, because I love Georgie. The curator, Mr. Jim [O’Rourke], really dug it. He told me he was in your town there, he went to Occupy Wall Street and sang a D. Boon song to the people. He was very sincere. I’m so glad we did that. It wasn’t a gimmick to enhance the career or something. I don’t like to do those kinds of things anyway. When things have a reality connected to them, that’s why we got into this scene.

twi-ny: You’ve always been a DIY guy, but you also keep up on the latest technology.

Mike Watt: That goes back to the old days, the fanzines.

twi-ny: Blogs are like ’zines.

Mike Watt: Yeah, they go back to the whole punk scene. The fanzines were like the fabric for our community. And then also the bands ― the Hüskers out in Minneapolis, the Meat Puppets in Phoenix, Ian MacKaye in DC ― we were already kind of connected. This was just a technological way to realize what I had been doing since a young punk rocker.

twi-ny: So the digital revolution just came easy to you.

Mike Watt: The way I use it, yeah. It allows me to collaborate with people and never even meet them. There’s this young guy in Canada, he sent me a whole album. I never met this guy; I just put the bass to it. One thing about middle age for me is, everybody’s got something to teach me, so why not go for it. I just got a song from some guys in Genoa, Italy, they want me to put a spiel on it about an immigrant who’s just getting beat down all the time. These kinds of connections were a lot more difficult in the older days. You actually had to be in the room with the guy. So I like that part of the new technology.

twi-ny: How is it collaborating with someone who is not there? Are you worried they’re not gonna like what you’re doing? You can’t just bounce ideas off each other.

Mike Watt: You get kinda worried, but I think it’s worth it to have that worry to take the chance, and you might grow a little bit. One of those projects, I remember having to go back maybe fifteen, sixteen times. Now do it again. Yeah, it was Funanori. Now do it again. Please do it again. [Laughs] There’s a danger if you’re just always getting your way. If you’re always getting your way, you’re not gonna learn anything. It’s all right to get into these situations that are trippy when you’re the deckhand. Like with the Stooges. I don’t tell those cats what to do. But what a classroom to sit in.

twi-ny: You seem to have a blast playing with the Stooges.

Mike Watt: Yeah, well, come on ― I don’t even know if we’d have a punk scene if it wasn’t for that band. It was such good fortune. I can’t believe that happened. Boon’s laughing his head off. You know, I hear from Ig, “Ronnie [Asheton] says you’re the man.” I could never have imagined that in a million years. . . . Ig, man, he really believes in working hard for people. I like his ethic; it reminds me of D. Boon when it comes to playing a gig.

twi-ny: With all these people who are contacting you from all over the world, who’s out there that you would like to collaborate with but you just haven’t had the opportunity?

Mike Watt: Someone I’ve always wanted to play with is Bob Mould. Those Hüsker guys, they were very interesting musicians. You know, me and D. Boon put out their first album, Land Speed Record. The Grant [Hart] thing might happen. He’s been writing me about it. In fact, he wants to play drums; he’s been on the guitar for a long time. I don’t know if I could do Bob and Grant at the same time. I don’t know if they’re into that. But Bob, that’s one guy from the old days . . . Those SST guys were interesting musicians, characters, people. Not to be all sentimental or nothing, but man, those cats, that was a trippy label.

twi-ny: My guess is if you could collaborate with someone who’s no longer living, it would be John Coltrane.

Mike Watt: Oh yeah, he would be happening. John Coltrane, shit, that would be a mind-blower. I got an interview where this guy asks him, “What are you listening to when you’re doing those solos?” He says, “I’m listening to the bass.” You know, I’m always trying to think of the bass as a launch pad or a springboard to set people up. Man, when he said that, it was like, fuck. D. Boon’s mom, I’m very grateful to her for putting me on this machine.

twi-ny: You just love playing the bass, don’t you?

Mike Watt: Yeah, I do. But even though I’ve been doing it a while, even more than moving to a five-string or six-string, I just stay with the four strings and somehow make it more a part of my own expression. And that’s what all these people are doing. They’re helping teach me to do that by giving me these assignments.