July 10, 2013: Performing the Archive: 15 Years of the Hemispheric Institute

July 10–11, 2013 | Performing the Archive: 15 Years of the Hemispheric Institute

Wednesday, July 10th, 2013: An evening program investigating performance practices, embodied repertoires, and primary materials from the Hemispheric Institute archive.

6 pm | Re-performance LIVE from the Archive | 7th Floor

Performance artists Carmelita Tropicana, Arthur Aviles, and Split Britches will re-perform pieces from their individual repertoires that now “live” in our online archive as digital bodies of work.

7 pm | Long Table: Performance and the Archive | 5th Floor

Professor Diana Taylor will lead a Long Table discussion on digital corporeality in online archives; affective experience as a form of ephemera; the abject body in performance documentation; archivist practices in processing performance materials; and the performativity of documentation.

8 pm | Performing the Archive Exhibit Inauguration and Reception | 5th Floor

Performing the Archive will examine how primary materials from live performance—artifacts, photographs, books, props, and moving images—enact moments of liveness post-performance.

The exhibit will feature materials by the following artists: 2boystv, Arthur Aviles, Nao Bustamante, Coatlicue Theatre Company, Colectivo de Acciones de Arte (CADA), Susana Cook, Fulana, Guillermo Gómez-Peña & La Pocha Nostra, H.I.J.O.S./G.A.C., Regina José Galindo, Mujeres Creando y Mujeres Creando Comunidad, Jesusa Rodríguez, Split Britches, Carmelita Tropicana, and Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani.

Due to space limitations, we ask that you please RSVP to secure a seat at the July 10th event.

A reception will follow.

Performance | Arthur Aviles

This Fairy’s Tail (2013) is a revisiting of 3 pieces that are examples of the term “autobiographical fantasy,” coined by Aviles in 1996:

1. Arturella (Revisited excerpt, 2013) First performed with Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre (AATT) at Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture, New York, NY, USA (1996)
2. Super Maeva de Oz (Revisited excerpt, 2013) First performed with Elizabeth Marrero at the Point Community Development Corporation, Bronx, New York (1998)
3. This Pleasant and Grateful Asylum (Revisited excerpt, 2013) First performed in collaboration with Charles Rice-González at the Point Community Development Corporation, Bronx, New York (1999)

In This Fairy’s Tail, Arthur presents excerpts from the earliest years (1996 to 1999) of Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre, a community dance theatre company located in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx. The Hemispheric Institute's audience was invited to experience not only the content of the work, but to imagine the context of performing it in the Bronx. Mr Aviles's dance partner for this performance was Saul Ulerio.

Arthur Aviles was born in Queens and grew up in Long Island and the Bronx. He received a BA in Theatre/Dance from Bard College. A member of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company from '87 to '95, he received a Bessie award in 1989. He is a NYFA fellow, and received the Mayor’s Award for Arts and Culture. Together with writer and community activist Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Aviles co-founded The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) in 1998. www.bronxacademyofartsanddance.org

Saúl Ulerio is a classical artist from the Dominican Republic. Ulerio has been performing and making works in the mediums of sound and dance performance in New York City since 2006. Ulerio is currently a 2012-14 Movement Research Artist in Residence. www.saululerio.org

Performance | Carmelita Tropicana

Milk of Amnesia (Revisited Excerpt, 2013)
First performed at PS122, New York, NY, USA (1994)
Directed by Ela Troyano

Carmelita Tropicana presents highlights of Milk of Amnesia. The solo piece juxtaposes different voices: that of Carmelita as the artist/writer, Pingalito as the stereotype of the Cuban man, and a horse from colonial times. This re-performance will feature documentation of the premiere performance at PS122 in 1994.

Carmelita Tropicana (a.k.a. Alina Troyano) is a performance artist, playwright, and actor. Troyano burst on New York’s downtown performing arts scene in the eighties with her alter ego, the spitfire Carmelita Tropicana and her counterpart, the irresistible archetypal Latin macho Pingalito Betancourt, followed by performances as Hernando Cortez’s horse and la Cucaracha Martina from her childhood fairy tales in Cuba. In Tropicana’s work humor and fantasy become subversive tools to rewrite history.

Performance | Split Britches

Two Story House (2013) references 4 fragments from lesser-known Split Britches works that examine how the duo has been engaged in a constant balancing act between inside and out, butch and femme, Peggy and Lois, being together and being apart.

1. Faith and Dancing (Revisited excerpt, 2013)
Earlier incarnation of work performed at La Mama E.T.C., New York, NY, USA (1999)

2. You are Just Like My Father (Revisited excerpt, 2013)
Earlier incarnation of work performed at The Rep, Santa Fe, New Mexico (1993)

3. Anniversary Waltz (Revisited excerpt, 2013)
Earlier incarnation of work performed at La Mama E.T.C., New York, NY, USA (1990)

4. Salad of the Bad Cafe (Revisited excerpt, 2013)
Earlier incarnation of work performed at the Drill Hall, London, England (1999)

Split Britches was founded in 1980 by Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, and Deb Margolin in New York City. They have transformed the landscape of queer performance with their vaudevillian, satirical gender-bending work. Split Britches creates new forms by exploiting old conventions like classical texts and popular myths, but its true sources are the details of everyday life in a community of outsiders, queers, feminists, and eccentrics.

Long Table Discussion | Performing the Archive

Performing the Archive Installation Images

Thursday, July 11, 2013: Roundtable

5–7 pm | Roundtable: Performing the Archive | 5th Floor

The roundtable will bring together scholars, artists, and archivists to reflect upon the challenges posed by "live" practices and embodied repertoires to conventional understandings of the archive. Confirmed participants include Diana Taylor, Richard Schechner,Marvin Taylor, andAnn Cvetkovich.

Performing the Archive events will take place at the Hemispheric Institute, which is located at 20 Cooper Square, 5th and 7th floors, New York, NY 10003.

These events are free and open to the public. A photo ID is required to enter NYU.

Events may also be seen via livestream.