Lead Faculty, George Emilio Sánchez
George Emilio Sánchez is the Chairperson of the Department of Performing and Creative Arts at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). He teaches undergraduate courses in the Drama program and graduate courses for the Education Department. He has directed five original student productions for the PCA and continues to work with students and classes with the goal of creating original theater/performance works. He continues to work as a teaching artist outside of the college demonstrating how the arts can be utilized in education across disciplines. Most recently he was the resident teaching artist for the Bronx Museum of the Arts for their Action Lab Theater. In this capacity he worked with teachers and artists teaching them Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed techniques. As a result of his work in education he was the recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Exchange 2006 Arts Educator Award.
His most recent performance work with collaborator Patricia Hoffbauer, The Architecture of Seeing-REMIX, was presented at La MaMa in 2006. In 2004 they premiered Milagro at Dance Theater Workshop. A year earlier Hoc Est Corpus/This Is A Body premiered at Symphony Space in April 2003. His third solo performance ROSA premiered at Dixon Place in 2002. His first solo performance, Chief Half-Breed in the Land of In-Between, was commissioned and premiered at Dance Theater Workshop and was also part of Mo’ Madness curated by George C. Wolfe at The Public Theater. His second solo performance piece, LATINDIO also premiered in New York City and both pieces have since been performed in over 20 states as well as in Puerto Rico and Peru. He has collaborated with Brazilian choreographer Patricia Hoffbauer on numerous pieces. Among those are A Night in La Mezcla and The Architecture of Seeing. As an artistic associate under JoAnne Akalaitis he created the Latino Lab at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater. He has garnered two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships for Performance Art/Emergent Forms and was a Fulbright Scholar to Peru in 1994.
Fulana
www.fulana.org
Fulana is a video collective in that emerged as the vision-fusion of four New York-based Latina artists joined by a love of video and performance, a critical gaze, a bilingual sense of humor and —most of all— a shared desire to create art within a collaborative onda. So we put our Spanglish brains together, drank some coffee, and founded Fulana in 2000. Through parody and satire, we explore themes that are relevant to Latino cultures in the U.S., delving into the nuances that bind our experiences, experimenting with strategies to make visible what we're so often made to read between the lines. Our work, whose aesthetic ranges from cable-access kitsch to Telemundo tinsel, consists mainly of mock television commercials, music videos and print advertisements. Focusing on popular culture, we respond to the ways ideologies and identities are marketed to us, sold to us—and how we sell ourselves—through the mass media.
Peggy Shaw
www.splitbritches.com
Peggy Shaw is an independent performance artist, painter and poet who believes in new images, and rejects old ideas. She challenges established practices in theatre, prisons, gender, relationships and humor. Her work is firmly rooted in a queer feminist perspective, with an unceasing quest for global equality in writing, spoken word and performance.
Pamela Sneed
http://www.youtube.com/user/pamspeaks
Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, performer, writer and actress. She is the author of Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery, published by Henry Holt (1998.) And KONG and other works published by Vintage Entity press 2009. She is the recipient of the 2006 BAX award for performance. Sneed has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Source, Time Out, VIBE, Karl Lagerfeld's "Off The Record," on the cover of New York Magazine and in 2009 her work appeared in Essence magazine.
Karen Finley
www.karenfinley.com
Karen Finley is a New York based artist whose raw and transgressive performances have long provoked controversy and debate. She has appeared and exhibited internationally her visual art, performances and plays. Her performances have been presented at Lincoln Center, New York City, The Guthrie, Minneapolis, American Repertory Theatre, The ICA in London, Harvard, The Steppenwolf in Chicago, and The Bobino in Paris. Her artworks are in numerous collections and museums including the Pompidou in Paris and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. . Finley attended the San Francisco Art Institute receiving an MFA and honorary PHD. She has received numerous awards and fellowships including a Guggenheim, 2 Obies, 2 Bessies, MS. Magazine Woman Of The Year, NARAL Person of the Year(which she shared with Anna Quindlen and Walter Cronkite), NYSCA and NEA Fellowships. She has appeared in many independent films and appeared in the film Philadelphia. She has authored and or edited seven books including Shock Treatment (City Lights 1990), Enough is Enough (Poseidon, Simon and Schuster 1993), Living It Up (Doubleday 1996), Pooh Unplugged (Smart Art Books 1999), A Different Kind Of Intimacy: The Collected Writings of Karen Finley (Thunders Mouth Press 2000), she edited and contributed to Aroused” A Collection of Erotic Writings (Thunders Mouth Press 2001) and George and Martha (Verso 2006).
Reverend Billy
www.revbilly.com
Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir believe that Consumerism is overwhelming our lives. The corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, "commons" places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. But if we "back away from the product" - even a little bit, well then we Put The Odd Back In God! The supermodels fly away and we're left with our original sensuality. So we are singing and preaching for local economies and real - not mediated through products -- experience. We like independent shops where you know the person behind the counter or at least - you like them enough to share a story.We ask that local activists who are defending themselves against supermalls, nuke plants, gentrification -- call us and we'll come and put on our "Fabulous Worship!" Remember children... Love is a Gift Economy!