VITAL MATERIALS
featuring performances by:
Tina Wang, Luke Mannarino, Oya Damla, & Marion Spencer
Curated by Sierra Ortega
…the line of history is long; a delicate extension of material and affect. A gentle curve and then a series of violent breaks. The post-modern fate of the anthro-earth corrupted by this constant motion. It flings us into a future we cannot understand, dreams of Utopia long forgotten. Bodies, no longer solid, evaporate into a field of virtuality. We dance on the precarious edge. We embrace that unknown force, for the future is always necessarily an imperfect stumbling towards.
During this evening we will see four artists who use performance and movement as a site to explore the potential of the material body itself as a generator of a different kind of future. A future where we are no longer overwhelmed to stagnation by debt, political mania, and social(media) melancholy. We will immerse ourselves in vital materials of these artists as they present work which seeks to manifest theatrical and aesthetic imaginings of the future. To inflame the dreams of others who desire to create the future now.
Artist Bios:
Tina Wang is a performance artist based in New York City. Her work cuts across themes of identity, fragility, and resilience, influenced by her experiences as a Taiwanese citizen who grew up in Latin America and works within the gig economy industries (of dance, translation, yoga, hospitality). In her recent Thirst series, she reflects on the objectification of body parts by entangling the body with objects that are historically associated with menial labor. Recently, she participated in the Immigrant Artist Program at New York Foundation for the Arts and was a guest artist at The Sable Project. Her work has been shown by Movement Research, Chashama, Radiator Gallery, Para//el Performance Space, House of Solutions, NY Poetry Society, Howl Performance Series, Radio Bushwick, and RESOBOX. Stay tuned to @tinawangdotnet on Instagram for more information and upcoming performances.
Luke Mannarino (he/him/his) is a conceptual artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY. His work is primarily based in live and video performance but also explores site specific installations and other time based media. He received a BFA/BA in Studio for Interrelated Media/ Art History from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. He has shown work both nationally and internationally at Mobius Inc (Boston), Defibrillator Gallery (Chicago), Panoply Performance Laboratory (Brooklyn), Charlotte St. Foundation (Kansas City), GALA – Central Coast (San Luis Obispo), and Farm Cultural Park (Favara, SIC).
Oya Damla is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn working within the intersection of performance, installation and sound art. Steeped in conceptual foundations ranging from psychoanalytical theory, phenomenology, gender, body dysmorphia to first / second generation identity studies, Damla’s performances explore the body in relation to thought formation, the experiential components of sound making and the process of identity navigation. Founder of The Ear, Damla works towards creating a neutral, communal space charged with the intention of bringing together emerging & established artists of diverse backgrounds & disciplines.
Marion Spencer is a New York-based dance artist, dance maker, and dance educator. Her work has been presented by Danspace Project (DraftWork), Gibney (Work Up), Brooklyn Studios for Dance (SoundStep), Green Space, Triskelion Arts, Movement Research at Judson Church, Center for Performance Research (Fall Movement), Amherst College, Dance Now NYC Festival, and the Domestic Performance Agency. Marion’s work is an energetic and tonal collaging, sourcing imagination, desire, and our very real world. Her dances call for transformation and an undoing of ourselves, inviting us to feel, ask questions, and consider what else both imaginatively and constructively. Marion currently dances for Kendra Portier/BAND|portier, Laura Peterson Choreography and Kinesis Project dance theatre. She teaches at Gibney, Dancewave, Rioult Dance Center and Greenwich Country Day. Marion graduated with honors from Vassar College in 2009, where she studied Geography-Anthropology. www.marion-spencer.com . Her work ‘to love the crab’ asks questions about resistance, the feminine, ambition, healing, capitalism’s need for relentless growth (and the toll that takes), and transformation. Taking inspiration from the writings of Yrsa Daley-Ward, Marion Woodman, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, this project asks what it looks like to embrace conscious femininity in work, resistance and success. As a white womyn artist, Spencer asks- what does white feminine resistance look like? There is physical rigor and tenderness. There is rock music, house music and a symphony of silence. There is breaking, mending, and listening.