From: Meredith Drum (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Aug 27 2009 - 07:56:50 PDT
Hello,
My trilogy of narrative cinema, The Double, The Formula and The
Tower, will screen this coming wednesday night, September 2nd, at
ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn. The screening will be followed by a
slide lecture as performance by Alison Ward regarding her most recent
spectacle / Punch and Judy battle on Coney Island, Beastly Beauty.
More info about both below.
When: Wednesday Sept. 2nd
Start time: 8:00 p.m.
Entrance: $10
Where: ISSUE Project Room
At the Old America Can Factory
232 3rd street, 3rd floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Link for directions and stuff:
http://issueprojectroom.org/contact/
Meredith Drum presents three low-ball sci-fi works of cinema that form
a loose trilogy, “The Tower”, “The Formula” and “The Double”. The
narratives combine elements from old stories of conflict between
feminine and masculine and interior and exterior loss and fulfillment.
All three were filmed in the same feral park and graced by actress
Juliana Francis Kelly.
Alison Ward explores the ideas and motivations behind her piece the
Beastly Beauty in the form of a performance as slide lecture. She will
re-envision her spectacular performance, an on-going farcical battle
that most recently occurred on Coney Island’s beach and boardwalk in
late August. The Punch and Judy battle between two characters
embodying different elements of beauty and the grotesque features
elaborate Baroque style costumes, one set adorned with pink ribbons
and lace, the other with garbage bags and filth. Each are backed by
six cheerleaders in armor, who taunt each other with chants that merge
cheerleading rallies with traditional battle cries and King Kong-style
beating of the chest. The battle is comical with each side flirting
and fighting, hitting and kissing, much like two lovers in a fierce
fight. The choreography combines wrestling moves with traditional
dance and burlesque to create a spectacle that is simultaneously
violent, sexual, and humorous. The idea behind The Beastly Beauty, is
an effort to comment through use of physical humor and public
performance, on the nature of violence, and to upend notions of
traditional roles of the masculine and feminine.
Artist Bios:
Meredith Drum is a cinema artist who makes both experimental fiction
and nonfiction as well as more conventional documentary. Her videos
have recently shown at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Galapagos Art
Space, Monkey Town, Fales Library and Archive at NYU and been
published online on Good Magazine and the New York Times Tmagazine.
Recent honors include a Flaherty Film Seminar fellowship, an Artists-
in-the-Marketplace residency and an award from the Experimental
Television Center. Also, she was named an “artist to watch” by art
critic Ken Johnson in his New York Times review of the AIM 29 show. Of
late she has worked with Patrick Bensard, the director of the
Cinémathéque de la Danse in Paris, on a portrait of Lucinda Childs and
with artist / choreographer Grisha Coleman on a piece about artists
and health care for Levering Investments in Creativity (LINC).
Alison Ward is an artist whose work incorporates performance, video
and sculptural installation. She focuses on issues of identity
interpreted through physical and slapstick humour. Exhibitions include
Haven Arts, The Dumbo Arts Center, and the Bronx Museum as well as the
CCCB Museum in Spain, RAW Space Gallery in Australia and Castlefield
Gallery in England. She has done residencies at Raw Space in
Australia, The Artist in the Marketplace Program, and the LMCC studio
program. Currently she is an artist partner on board The Waterpod
Project in New York City, and is an artist in resident in LMCC’s Swing
Space Program.
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.