ImagiNation

Mexican performance artist, writer and director of the infamous La Pocha Nostra performance troupe, Gómez-Peña returns to New York to perform reinterpretations from his

ever-evolving “living archive” as well as new works.

8  PM

Monday, June 13, 2011

La MaMa E.T.C.

74 East 4th Street, 2nd Floor NY, NY 10003

(between Second Ave. and the Bowery)

$15 General Admission

$10 Students / Seniors (with valid ID)

ONE NIGHT ONLY—TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

online: www.lamama.org / phone reservations: 212-475-7710

Credit: Guillermo Gómez-Peña El chamán travesti, 2004. Photographer: James McCaffry

AN EVENING WITH GUILLERMO GÓMEZ-PEÑA

Special appearance by Susana Cook

NEW YORK WITH AN ACCENT
Sunday, April 17, 3-6 pm

(Celebrating Immigrant Heritage Week)

Tickets: $8 online
https://secure.gigmaven.com/events/5271/orders/new
$10, $5 (for students) – at the door

IASNY, founded by Romanian-born playwright and NYU professor Saviana Stanescu, is an alliance of outstanding people working in the arts and academia who are committed to support, nurture and advocate for immigrant voices as a vital and vibrant part of the New York City community.

Advisory Board: John Clinton Eisner, Teresa Eyring, David Henry Hwang, Carol Martin, Joyce Maio, Jose Rivera, Richard Schechner, Zishan Ugurlu

Leadership Committee: May Adrales, Amanda Feldman, Ana Martinez, Jelena Stupljanin, Tamilla Woodard, Graciela Berger Wegsman, Aaron Schroeder (PR)

As part of our efforts to expand our involvement in the New York community and advocate for the brilliant and diverse voices of immigrant artists as an integral part of that fabric, IASNY will be having its official launch at the storied Nuyorican Poets Café (executive director: Dan Gallant) in the East Village. Featuring performances by many prominent members, this launch event promises to embody the vision of IASNY as a forum for the exchange of ideas, the fostering of an immigrant voice, and a showcase of the breadth of talents in New York City’s immigrant community.

The speakers/performers include:

Saviana Stanescu
Romania*, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, writer
President/Founder of IASNY

Teresa Eyring (advisory board)
Executive Director – Theatre Communications Group

Zishan Ugurlu (advisory board)
Turkey, director, actress, artistic director of Actors Without Borders – ITONY
Scholar, Assistant Professor at Eugene Lang College The New School University

Graciela Berger Wegsman
Argentina/Israel, playwright
Freelance Journalist Daily News/Hora Hispana and Daily News (VIVA)

Ana Martinez
Mexico City, Graduate Center (CUNY), scholar and designer

Tamilla Woodard
Director, founding member of The Internationalists

Jelena Stupljanin
Serbia, Actress

Susana Cook
Argentina, playwright, performer, director

Jennifer Lim
Hong Kong, MFA from Yale School of Drama, actor

Frances Uku
Nigeria/UK, Harvard University, actor

Rosa Emilia Toledo
Mexico, New York University/University of Tennessee, writer

Inma Heredia
Spain, flamenco singer/dancer/comedienne

Sujin Lee
South Korea, interdisciplinary artist
MA in Performance Studies from NYU

Ondina Frate
Romania, Glass Beads Theatre Ensemble, actress

Christina Quintana & Alessandra Hirsch
MFA playwrights at Columbia University

Blagovesta Momchedjikova
PhD, Bulgaria, New York University, writer

Stavri Karamfilov
Bulgaria, independent artist and scholar, theater director and sculptor

Paola Lázaro-Muñoz
Puerto Rico, Columbia University, playwright

Monica Santana
Venezuela, Columbia University MFA, actor

Jessica Litwak
Playwright, Performer, The New Generation Theatre Ensemble

Daniela Dakich
Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Serbia), HB Studio, actress

Natasa Trifan
Romania, dancer/choreographer

* We asked the featured artists/speakers to specify their country of origin if they are first generation immigrants – however, IASNY encourages the participation of all artists and scholars interested in the immigrant experience
http://saviana.com/immigrant_artists_and_scholars_in_new_york_iasny

Immigrant Heritage Week – established by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2004, celebrates the experiences and contributions of immigrants to New York City.

Immigrant Heritage Week 2011 is from April 11 to April 17 and celebrates the vibrant life stories New Yorkers have to tell.

Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY) is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY) may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. You can safely

For more details e-mail us at: immigrantartists@yahoo.com

STATES OF DEVOTION: RELIGION, NEOLIBERALISM, AND THE POLITICS OF THE BODY IN THE AMERICAS

November 4 & 5, Thursday & Friday

10 am to 7 pm

For more information: http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/announcements/728-nov-4-5-states-of-devotion

This conference aims to promote and strengthen interdisciplinary dialogue about the changing role and place of religious discourses and practices in the wake of the transformations wrought by neoliberal globalization upon communities, societies and polities across the Hemisphere. This event is part of a multi-year project on ‘Religion and Politics in the Americas’ funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Starting from the understanding that conceptions and models of “pluralism” or “secularism” vary across national contexts and regional geographies, we want to focus our attention on the ways in which the retraction of the state and the unrestrained acceleration of economic forces and market logics—neoliberal globalization—have transformed the experience of religiosity as well as the role and influence of religion across the Americas. As religious life has become increasingly channeled through the complex mechanisms of a neoliberal marketplace, the market has increasingly taken on roles and functions previously occupied by the state across broad social arenas. These transformations have not only affected discrete areas of social and economic policy, such as health care, education and security, but have also given rise to new private-public interfaces such as faith-based initiatives and discourses of volunteerism that have supplanted the discourses of rights. This shift has also required the production of new kinds of subjects, emblematized by the shift from citizen to consumer. We are particularly interested in the ways in which religious diversity has been variously enabled, foreclosed, harnessed and even commodified by the neoliberal state. In this context, we also wish to explore how public debates over gender and sexuality serve as flashpoints illuminating the wider workings of the state’s ongoing negotiation with religion and religious difference. Sexuality and sexual life more broadly connect individuals to the state as citizens, to the market as consumer-laborers, and to the supposedly traditional values represented by religion. But how this happens, and with what policy implications on a range of issues, will not be the same in every national context.

Confirmed participants include:

Ana Amuchástegui (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana)
Roberto J. Blancarte (Colegio de México)
Susana Cook (Independent artist)
Rafael de la Dehesa (City University of New York)
Emerson Giumbelli (Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro)
Marcial Godoy-Anativia (New York University)
Macarena Gómez-Barris (University of Southern California)
Janet Jakobsen (Barnard College)
Leda Martins (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)
Elizabeth McAlister (Wesleyan University)
Bethany Moreton (University of Georgia)
Kemy Oyarzún (Universidad de Chile)
Ann Pellegrini (New York University)
Anthony Petro (New York University)
Reverend Billy (The Church of Life After Shopping)
Jesusa Rodríguez (Resistencia Creativa)
Pablo Semán (IDES/Colegio de México)
Peggy Shaw (Split Britches)
Winnifred Sullivan (University of Buffalo)
Diana Taylor (New York University)
Moysés Zúñiga Santiago (Independent photojournalist)

Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor
Bowery @ East 5th Street

The Playhouse – Vertigo Theatre Centre, 115 9 Avenue SE, Calgary, AB
Phone: 403-221-3708 / E-mail: info@vertigotheatre.com

October 14, 2010, Thursday 9:30 PM – 11:00 PM

Tickets: Adult – $20.00 / Students & Seniors – $10.00

Festival Pass: Gold (Calgary & Banff) – $130 / Calgary Events Only – $100 / Banff Events Only – $70

For more information Call the WordFest Office at 403-237-9068
Or E-mail the WordFest Office at boxoffice@wordfest.com

WORDFEST 2010 PRESENTS WORD OF MOUTH

Join WordFest for exciting marquee evening event in Calgary!

Wordsmiths play with music to create an event that will leave you speechless. Authors are joined by WordFest’s house band, led by renowned bassist Mike Lent.

C.R. AVERY || MARK BERUBE || SUSANA COOK || SHANE KOYCZAN || CATHERINE OWEN || RACHEL ZOLF

C.R. AVERY (CAN)

C.R. Avery has toured throughout Canada, the United States and Europe, displaying his diverse array of talents. He is a beat-box poet, playwright and rock and roll matador to name a few. His music spans many genres; blues, hip hop, country western and spoken word. His live performances have been likened to those of Patti Smith, Iggy Pop and John Lee Hooker. His second book 38 Bar Blues comes out this fall and his 15th album “The Great Canadian Novel” launches in Europe in the spring of 2011. Avery resides in East Vancouver, BC.

MARK BERUBE (CAN)

Mark Berube is a multi-faceted musician, songwriter and English literature graduate with a modern-indie folk sound. Garnering international recognition and acclaim, both for his music and lyrics, the former member of spoken-word folk group The Fugitives  has been nominated for a Western Canada Music Award and a Canadian Folk Music Award in 2007 and 2008, respectively. After having toured Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and Austria, Berube accompanied by his band The Few, will be releasing their fourth studio album in early 2011.

SUSANA COOK (USA)

Susana Cook is a performing artist based in New York who’s been writing and producing her own work for over 20 years. She has staged 16 original plays all concerned with the issues of racism, classism, nationalism and homophobia. Her work has been presented in numerous performance spaces in New York City, including Dixon Place, PS122, WOW Cafe Theater and The Kitchen. She fashions powerful satires and uses humour as a tool to reach out to her audiences and to expose certain rationales by the politically powerful. Her shows have toured internationally and have received multiple awards.

SHANE KOYCZAN (CAN)

Shane Koyczan is one of the world’s premier spoken word artists. Koyczan has published two books, the poetry collection Visiting Hours, and Stickboy, a novel in verse. Koyczan was the first poet from outside the United States to win the prestigious USA National Individual Poetry Slam. He has performed to full houses around the world, from university amphitheatres to the most respected music and literary festivals.  Koyczan performed a variation of his poem “We Are More” for a worldwide audience of billions at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Koyczan lives in Penticton, BC. WordFest alumnus 2005, 2006, 2008 More about Shane Koyczan…

CATHERINE OWEN (CAN)

Catherine Owen is a poet and essayist whose work has been published in Canadian and international magazines. She has published over 10 books and her work has garnered many nominations and awards, including the Earle Birney Prize. She has been shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Prize and for the CBC Literary Award. Her latest work is Seeing Lessons, a book of poetry based on pioneer photographer Mattie Gunterman. Part biography, part environmental elegy, Seeing Lessons leaves readers seeing the world in a different light. Owen lives in Vancouver, BC.

RACHEL ZOLF (CAN)

Rachel Zolf is a poet and literary editor of poetry books from Toronto, ON. She is the author of four full-length poetry collections and the recipient of the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. She is the founding poetry editor of The Walrus magazine and brings her latest poetry book, Neighbourhood Procedure, a follow-up to the Trillium Award-winning, Human Resources. Neighbourhood Procedure  is an extraordinary collection of poems regarding the correspondence between the daily news and the contemporary theory of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. She currently lives in New York City. More about Rachel Zolf…

Friday Night in the Club

Friday, October 15, 2010 – 8:00 pm
The Club, Theatre Complex
All Tickets $12

Featuring Mark Berube, Susana Cook, Shane Koyczan, and Kirk Miles.

A stellar line-up kicks off the Banff weekend of WordFest and will keep people talking for weeks.

Ask the Box Office for information on the Banff Pass, your ticket to all the Banff WordFest events.

The Club Fine Print
• Ticket sales close a 1/2 hour after the performance start time (subject to availability).
• The Club is a licensed venue and admits those 14 and older.

An exercise in Pop Blasphemy

An ecclesiastical experiment in Heathenism

A sharp biting satire that skewers the sacred

By Susana Cook                           Sound design by Julián Mesri

With Performative Interventions by Homogenius Kiebpoli Calnek, Zoe Lukov, Flora Mendoza,  Helaine Gawlica, Zena Bibler and Rey Asher Jonah Grosz, Simba Yangala, Syd London, J. Bob Allotta  and Anti-Social.

It’s a show about God and Sex. About Art and religion. About Love and Queers. About Queer Love. It’s about Body and Soul. A queer apocalyptic Epic.

The Fury of the Gods is a series of ecclesiastical interventions that mocks capitalist individualism. Susana Cook uses religious oratory to highlight conservative interpretations of homosexuality and exaggerate them, taking them to their logical extremes.  As conservative narrative appropriates religion to fulfill an agenda, Cook’s work appropriates religious and political language as a means to unveil the ways that fundamentalist belief have come to influence public policy and unmask the real substance and immorality of these national messages.

Saturday July 10 at 9-30pm.
Dixon Place:  161A Chrystie Street.  New York, NY 10002.  (212) 219-0736
Nearby Subway Stops::   F V to 2^nd AV–J M Z to Bowery—-B D to Grand Street