by Stephen Tortora-Lee on February 25, 2012
A pear is always more than just a pear and a man is more than the sum of his collaborations.
Coosje the story of Claes Oldenburg (played by Steven Conroy) and his long-time collaborator and wife Coosje van Bruggen (played by Julie Congress). It is also the story of a Pear who is “self-aware” (played by Haley Greenstein).
Like Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, Coosje is a story about how an artist’s process of creating helps them develop a new reality for themselves as well as for the people seeing it. Coosje allows for intimate interaction with the elements of the creative process. This play highlights the notion that every piece of art is the completion of a journey for an object (real or imagined, sentient or inanimate) to get to the place where its inclusion in the art creates the context and meaning of the art itself.
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by Sarah V. Schweig on May 17, 2010
photo by Enrico Luttmann
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal;
bad poets deface what they take, and good poets
make it into something better, or at least something different.
T.S. Eliot
The very idea of Three Sisters Come and Go was risky to begin with. A collaborative effort between the actors — Liza Cassidy, Claire Helene and Jackie Lowe –, the director, Orietta Crispino, and dramaturg, Marco Casazza, the play would open with Samuel Beckett’s “dramaticule,” Come and Go, and then the following scenes would be drawn from the texts of Anton Chekhov’s four major plays: Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Sea Gull, and The Three Sisters (which, to add to the complexity of the intertextuality, is a play based loosely on the three Bronte sisters), and the entirety of the play was to be governed by Structuralist philosopher and critic Julia Kristeva’s ideas about … something or other.
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by Sarah V. Schweig on May 4, 2010
I’m not big on the real world. But The Real World–well, that’s a different story. I don’t have cable. I don’t even have a TV. It is therefore impossible to use innocent channel-surfing as an excuse to pause on a program of eight strangers living in a mansion having their lives taped. No. The steps I take to satisfy my addiction are numerous. I turn on my computer. I type in MTV.com and press enter. I click on The Real World, I click on the next episode, I wait for it to load. Occasionally, when the wireless signal in my apartment wanes, I extract myself from the comfort and comforters of my bed, go into the hallway, unplug the router, count to ten like Netgear told me, and plug the router back in. Cancun, D.C., Brooklyn. I satisfy my addiction come hell or no signal. And I’m starting to have an idea why.
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by Sarah V. Schweig on March 13, 2010
…then wilt thou not be loth
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A Paradise within thee, happier far.
-John Milton
One day, a few years back, wandering confused and aimless as I often did when I first moved to New York, I found Paradise.
It was another month or so, though, before I realized I had found it because I hadn’t written it down. All I’d written in my notebook was, “saints and angels embrace.”
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by Sarah V. Schweig on February 25, 2010
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into
the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
—Jean-Paul Sartre
I.
“Let’s build a stadium,” someone said.
“Let’s fill the bottom of the stadium with ice,” said another. “And let’s fill the stands with people.” Everyone nodded.
“We could affix metal blades to a pair of shoes,” someone said. “We could put these shoes on a person!” another added. “We could have them slide around on the ice wearing these bladed shoes!” added a third. “Let’s call them ‘skaters’ and the shoes ‘skates.’” Everyone concurred.
“Let’s name every twist and turn they make while sliding around.” Then another asked, “Like ‘triple axel’ and ‘double lutz?’” “Uh huh!” “We could import people from all over the world to assign numerical scores to what this person does on the ice in this stadium.” “We’ll add the scores together!” one proclaimed, while another piped in, “We’ll declare a winner!” Everyone pondered. “We’ll give them gold, bronze or silver!” Everyone nodded and agreed.
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by The Happiest Medium on June 10, 2009
Guest blogger Karla Vizcarra gives us eight reasons to hit up Ernest Concepcion’s solo art show.
Ode to odin, oil and ink on canvas, 48" x 60," 2006.
There are approximately 8 reasons why you have to go to see this show (If you only need one, see number 8).
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