“The Performance Mix Festival offered me the crucial opportunity to develop new material in front of a live audience. The art of live performance is truly experimental, because it is a time-based art which requires a live audience for its very existence. Therefore it can only be developed in a comprehensive way through experiences such as the Performance Mix Festival. The Festival’s marketing efforts helped bring in an audience that was largely new to my work, which was an added benefit of the experience for me as an artist dedicated to continually broadening my horizons.”

- Cynthia Hopkins
writer, composer, musician, creator
and performer of unique music/theater projects

View the Schedule and Artist Roster, and buy Tickets!

Know your artists: Smokifantastic | Rebecca Patek | Dana Michel/Bland of Bess | Daniel Linehan

New Dance Alliance in association with Joyce SoHo presents the 26th Annual Performance Mix Festival, six days, thirteen events and twenty eclectic experimental dance and performance artists. Check out the festival schedule, artist biographies and videos.

Daniel Linehan, photo by Jean Luc Tanghe

Photo by Aaron Purkey

FIRKIN CRANE 

Created and performed by Karen Bernard

Movement Research at the Judson Church
(55 Washington Square)

Monday, December 5th @ 8pm / Free

a piece about bangors and mash, swashbuckling heroes and the art of performance

On shared program with: Jo Pollitt & Rhiannon Newton, Melanie Maar, Laurie Berg

Firkin Crane was developed in residencies at the Firkin Crane Blank Canvas Residency and Silo; and through Fieldwork.

My Studio at Firkin Crane

I am on my last leg of a three week Blank Canvas residency. When I first arrived it felt lonely – now I am savoring the moments. The staff at Firkin Crane are so gracious and helpful.  I soon felt at home.  The studio I chose is small and quirky, but what it makes up for in size  is the quality of the room. It has asymmetrical white walls, Marley floor and three gorgeous arched windows. The windows inspired new material. I took time to video the windows and the changing light throughout the day and along with sound score by Boris Billier, a site specific sound artist from Paris, a new beginning is in the works. I had an interesting challenge setting up the room, creating a white corner, blacking out the windows, and figuring out where to place my projections and body for my own going work, “Ouette.” I continually find nuances in the movement and video images – will I ever be able to call it finished?

Sun Wei

I am sharing the artist residency house with Sun Wei. Sun Wei has written 13 novels and several novelettes. She is from Shanghai. Cork City is a sister city to Shanghai. She received a residency award from the Munster Literature Centre in Cork City.

Gastronomically I have been to heaven and hell. I discovered the English Market, similar to the Chelsea Market but more. A number of butcher stalls carrying fresh meats including tripe, homemade sausages and spiced beef. The fish section carried finnan haddie, which is difficult to find in the States. The cheese is to die for. My favorite was the Irish varieties of soft and hard goats cheese. And, even though this is Ireland– homemade tomato, pesto and puttanesca sauce, pasta, olives, pickled garlic, sundried tomatoes and bufalino were in abundance.   But, I warn you all, do not eat drisheen. A horrible sausage made of pigs blood, milk and grain. It is Corks’ answer to blood pudding. I like blood pudding, but this stuff OMG. Murphy beer is Cork’s answer to Guiness and mighty delicious. Can’t beat a beer and listen to Triad music.

On the weekend the studios are closed and I took advantage of going on excursions. I had a wonderful weekend in Dublin. Met up with Laurie Uprichard, who was finishing up her third year as Artistic Director of the Dublin Dance Festival. New York City will be happy to have her back.  She took me to Howth, a seaside town just outside of Dublin. Back in Dublin she recommended an amazing production by Pan Pan Theatre Company of Beckett’s “All That Fall” at the Project Arts Centre. I also took an old fashion bus tour to the Ring of Kerry, absolutely gorgeous unspoilt rolling hills of small farms, cows, sheep, peat and lakes.   The village of Kinsley with its natural harbor is also a must see.

Ring of Kerry

Cork City

To round up my residency I will have a showing on my last day. So needless to say, I am motivated. Nothing like a showing to help you focus.

Stay tuned to this space for Karen’s diary from Ireland!

“Karen Bernard… has delivered her development of a performance, Ouette, engaging the  feminine shadow into a new dialectic surrounding dark energy dark/kundalini with her unveiling of Femmes.”

Read the article: Karen Bernard’s “Femmes” & the Birth on R(evolution)

Guelda Voien writes:

“The evening was a welcome throwback to a time which unapologetically valued all things queer, provocative and new.”

Read the article, Feminist Performance Art Blooms Anew at Dixon Place (PDF)

Otherworldly shamanistic intensity, dangerous sexual fantasies, hyper-personal states and spectacle works-in-progress: Karen Bernard’s Ouette (excerpt), Jil Guyon’s Widows Veil, Johanna S. Meyers’ Stroll 2, and Dana Michel AKA Charlie Heatherington 1976 (excerpt).

June 16, 2011 @ 7:30pm
161A Chrystie St. (between Rivington and Delancey)
New York, NY

Tickets:
Purchase tickets online here
General $15, Students/Seniors $12

For more information:
212-219-0736
www.dixonplace.org

The review appears in Ultra, a Portland-based forum and platform for contemporary art, dance, and performance.

Read the entire article on Ultra‘s website.

The highlight of the festival was 25×3.  Twenty five past Performance Mix artists created three minute works to unique scores by Alexis O’Hara.  Without pauses the work flowed with the most beautiful transitions. Check out all the great things that the 25x 3 artists had to say (below), and watch these interviews with reflections after the festival of Owen Chapman, 50collectiVe, and Jana Jevtovic!

Reminder: Applications for the Performance Mix Festival are DUE June 1st! Click here to download!

Check out what the artists of 25×3 have to say about the Festival:

“What an awesome group. You all are rockers! Thanks Karen for keeping NDA a powerful force.”

-Jody Oberfelder

“Yes thank you Karen for having a dream 25 years ago that we got to live in yesterday and last night. To Sally Silvers for inviting me to roller derby with her, I dreamt about it last night. And for all of us and you who can show so much of who we are in 3 minutes. We actually did 9 minutes each with three runs. Very cool stuff. Thanks and Continue On!”

-K.J. Holmes

“Nothing like a love fest! Hey Karen thank you so much for helping to keep us all on our toes butts and back bends 25! strong! Remember? you took this ghetto Puerto Rican out of the country for his first time. Off to the Edinburgh fringe fest with Jean Churchill in 1987! Great love and thanks to you we can all come together again and again.”

-Arthur Aviles

“That was amazing fun! Karen – beautifully conceived and … held together by everyone working together! Wow, what could be better. Thank you everyone for this totally cool experience!”

-Tina Croll

“Kudos to you all for a wonderful show, hearty thanks to the sure-footed and quick-thinking crew, thanks to Karen for thinking of this and for creating and guiding NDA’s first 25 years. I hope I get to dance at NDA’s 50th anniversary too.”

-David Parker

“From idea to post-show party, what a momentous, energizing event! Wanted to chime in with my thanks to Karen (I’d pick you for chancellor), Here’s to the 25th and the anniversary celebrations in between.”

-Wendy Blum

“It was a pleasure to share the stage with each of you, to see your work, to have a reunion with some and to meet others for the first time. Karen, it was a brilliant idea and it was brilliantly executed by everyone involved. I wish you all continued growth and joy in your work and look forward to the next time we get to dance together.”

-Ariane Anthony

“Dear Karen, it was great, you are great. It was all so well organized. Big thank and big hug.”

-SOULOWORKS/Andrea E. Woods & Dancers