Wanton performance artist Ann Liv Young’s most recent alter ego, the homespun psychologist Sherry, confronts personality extremes of kindness, helplessness, and wickedness in conjunction with the stereotype she deals with most directly in her own life, the aggressive woman. Tonight as part of Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain, Sherry, who shares, is paired with her opposing (though not opposed) character, Mary, who marries.
Dancer and choreographer Jen Rosenblit performs research into the contested spaces of anger and rage, speaking to an improvisatory opening for ‘the felt’, with sound by C. Spencer Yeh. Their previous intersection flaunted an affinity for games of chance, sound ef- fects, boundaries, debris, reiteration, distraction. At ISSUE the duo reopen this dialogue, presenting their second collaboration after almost a year of silence.
Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain– a two-month festival celebrating ISSUE Project Room's 10th anniversary– revisits seminal past projects and initiates new relationships with over 60 artists working across disciplines of sound, dance, performance, and literature. Presented as a series of 24 evenings of provocative double billings, Ten Years Alive blurs the boundaries between divergent disciplines and practices and celebrating the vibrancy of the Brooklyn experimental arts community.
Ann Liv Young was born on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. She is a 2003 graduate of Hollins University’s prestigious dance program and has also studied at Laban Centre London. She was featured in Michael Blackwood’s documentary New York Dance: “States of Performance” (2010). In her work, she has reinterpreted fairy tales, such as “Snow White” (2006–2008) or biographical figures, such as George and Martha Washington (“The Bagwell in Me” 2008–2009), and now, “Cinderella”. Ann Liv Young’s Cinderella is a reinterpretation of the classic fairy tale, inspired by versions as disparate as Disney’s and the macabre Grimm brothers’. It is a figure called Sherry, Young’s southern wildcat alter ego. Sherry, playing all characters, confronts personality extremes of kindness, helplessness, and wickedness in conjunction with the stereotype she deals with most directly in her own life, the aggressive woman. Sherry is a one-woman show, but Ann Liv performed it also in “Girl Monster Orchestra” presented by Chicks on Speed (2010) and recently she let 37 students of the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) Amsterdam take on the personality of Sherry („37 Sherrys“ 2011), and in 2013 made made regular appearances in her Sherry Truck as part of American Realness at Abrons Art Center.
Jen Rosenblit has been working on making dances in NYC since 2005 and holds a B.A. from Hampshire College. Rosenblit is from rural Maine, which always feels important in regards to understanding time passing. Rosenblit has performed for Kimberly Brandt, toured with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company and is a part of Yvonne Meier's remake of The Shining. In NYC she has taught improvisation and performance independently, through CLASSCLASSCLASS and currently through Movement Research. Jen has been a teaching artist at Bowdoin College, Hampshire College, Hollins University and University of Massachusetts Amherst and has done lecture demonstrations at both Yale and Harvard. Rosenblit's work has taken her abroad to Denmark, Moscow and Milan. In Philadelphia, Rosenblit was in residence for a month at BODEGA, holding public performances, talks and curated an evening of NYC artists to explore the idea of performance in their work. Rosenblit's Lunch N Lecture was curated by BODEGA at the ICA, Philadelphia, as part of their First Among Equals series. Rosenblit has worked extensively with performer, Addys Gonzalez over the past ten years, was a 2009 Fresh Tracks Artist is a recipient of the 2012 Grant to Artists from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts. Her recent works, That Sick Sound, Everlast and So Badly, When Them, and In Mouth have located a space for being with audience in a contemplative theatricality.
C. Spencer Yeh was born in Taipei, Taiwan, studied film at Northwestern University in Chicago IL, repped Cincinnati OH for many years, and is now based in Brooklyn NY. Yeh is active both as a solo and ensemble artist, as well as with his project, Burning Star Core. As an improviser, Yeh has focused on developing a personal vocabulary using violin, voice, and electronics. In more compositional and organizational modes, Yeh works with all aspects physically, conceptually, and aurally available. He is concerned not only with the sensual aspects of sound, but the gestural qualities as well. Yeh has collaborated with a deep and ever-growing list of individuals and groups and has performed across the U.S.A. and Europe. He has also had visual art and video works presented internationally.
