Friday, October 6th from 4-10.30pm, ISSUE celebrates its 20th Anniversary at our 22 Boerum Pl. theater with projections of work commissioned for our With Womens Work Series (2021), which engaged fourteen artists to create new works inspired by scores included in Womens Work, a magazine edited and self-published by Alison Knowles and Annea Lockwood in NYC. Originally published in 1975, Womens Work sought to highlight the overlooked work of female artists working at the cusp of the visual arts, music, and performance and is a collection of performance scores. In addition to Knowles and Lockwood, it included the work of Beth Anderson, Ruth Anderson, Jacki Apple, Barbara Benary, Sari Dienes, Nye Ffarrabas (Bici Forbes), Simone Forti, Wendy Greenberg, Heidi Von Gunden, Françoise Janicot, Christina Kubisch, Carol Law, Mary Lucier, Lisa Mikulchik, Ann Noël (Ann Williams), Pauline Oliveros, Takako Saito, Carolee Schneemann, Mieko Shiomi, Elaine Summers, Carole Weber, Julie Winter, and Marilyn Wood.
Throughout 2021, With Womens Work presented a group of fourteen artists who were asked to choose a score to interpret and respond to through their own working process. The Womens Work publication offers an invaluable counterpoint to the male avant-garde canon, evidencing a network of diverse artists relating their score-based practices to the feminist art movement of the 1970s that tended to focus on more traditional visual media. Womens Work was republished as a facsimile edition by Primary Information in 2019 edited by James Hoff and Irene Revell. As highlighted by Primary Information, the original editors of the magazine were and remain adamant that the works should be performed; that they not remain static as an artifact.
“The gendering/identification of artists as female […] has been controversial for as far back as I can remember. Pauline Oliveros was far from the first woman composer to protest it. As a young composer I too wanted simply to be identified as a composer, but as the herstory of women musicians in western music was gradually brought forward by the women's music movement and the essential work of major feminist musicologists [...] I came to recognise that ignoring my gender, sort of neutering myself denied the culturally implicit and obvious gendering of 'composer' as male, which has had major effects on access for composing women until recently. I also realised that by accepting that my gender was integral to my composer's identity, I could help to encourage younger women to assert themselves as composers also. Role models matter ...”
“We wanted to publish work which other people could pick up and do: that aspect of it was really important…this was not anecdotal, this was not archival material, it was live material. You look at a score, you do it.” – Annea Lockwood
The showing on the evening of Friday Oct 6th, will include a panel conversation at 8pm featuring three artists who were commissioned as part of the Series: Ayano Elson, Mariana Valencia (2015 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence) and Ogemdi Ude. The conversation will be moderated by dance artist Laurie Berg, who will have installed and activated her (Sports) Bar-In-Residence at 22 Boerum Pl. during the majority of ISSUE’s 20th Anniversary celebration.
SCHEDULE
4:00pm - crys cole
4:19pm - Crystal Peñalosa
4:45pm - SYANIDE
5:06pm - Julia Santoli
6:02pm - Mayaan Tsadka
6:57pm - Sokunthary Svay
7:10pm - Auclair
7:22pm - Annabella Playe
8:00pm - Panel Conversation
8:40pm - Ayano Elson
8:53pm - Mariana Valencia
9:12pm - Ogemdi Ude
9:26pm - Hunter Hunt-Hendrix
9:52pm - Sydney Spann
10:16pm - Savannah Harris
Between Friday, Sep 29th and Saturday, Oct 7th, ISSUE invites audiences to experience presentations of works - originally commissioned for online distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic - at the 22 Boerum Pl. theater. The commissioned work will be shown as projected installations, coupled with a variety of artist talks, for a limited capacity environment of 74 people.
In response to our suspension of in-person programming during the onset of the pandemic, ISSUE commissioned more than 250 artists to present free online programs through series such as: Isolated Field Recordings; The Steve Circuit; Heroes Are Gang Leaders; Distant Pairs; With Womens Work; and 90 presentations of Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room amongst others. Our commitment to support these artists mattered more than ever during the pandemic given the challenges that artists and many small cultural organizations across NYC experienced and still currently face. ISSUE is pleased to present these works as installed projections for audiences to experience in person, in ISSUE’s home theater, gathering with our community in celebration of the organization’s 20th Anniversary.
These initiatives complemented ISSUE’s work publishing archival documentation on online platforms currently collected and streamable on our expansive Archive page on the ISSUE website. ISSUE currently maintains a publicly accessible archive of hundreds of published video and audio recordings. These materials are a freely accessible collection of performance documentation that spans our recent and historic work.
During these presentations Laurie Berg’s (Sports) Bar-In-Residence will be activated as well as a lobby installation by Eva Davidova: Vinson and Catherine in the Garden, a series of augmented reality prints.
This Fall marks the 20th Anniversary of ISSUE and will be celebrated with a series of commissioned programs, orbiting around our annual Gala and affiliated Benefit events. During the Anniversary celebration, between phases of renovation, ISSUE returns to our 22 Boerum Pl. theater for a special series of twenty limited-capacity events. Featuring artists from across our history as well as new projects, these gatherings - including our 20th Anniversary Gala - present an opportunity to celebrate and support ISSUE as we continue an ambitious calendar of programming. Join us in recognizing this important milestone in our history.
These gatherings are free with RSVP, and members retain exclusive access to all limited-capacity events until sold out.
Panelist Bios
Ayano Elson is an Okinawan-American choreographer and dancer based in New York. Ayano’s choreography investigates roles of labor and power in contemporary American artmaking. Her choreography has been presented by AUNTS, the Chocolate Factory, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, Knockdown Center, Movement Research, and Roulette, among others. She has received funding support from Dance/NYC, Foundation for Contemporary Arts and Mertz Gilmore Foundation. She has been an artist in residence at Abrons Arts Center, ArtCake, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, Lower Manhattan Cultural Center, and Movement Research’s Van Lier Emerging Artist of Color Fellowship. She has performed in works by Laurie Berg, Kim Brandt, Jesi Cook, Milka Djordjevich, Simone Forti, Niall Jones, Kyli Kleven, and Abigail Levine at Dia:Beacon, Danspace, the Guggenheim, the Kitchen, MoMA, MoMA PS1, MCA Chicago, New Museum, New York Live Arts, Pioneer Works, REDCAT, Roulette, SculptureCenter, and the Shed. Ayano is currently working on a record with music collaborator Matt Evans and will be presenting new choreography at PAGEANT on October 19–20. ayanoelson.com
Mariana Valencia works through dance. She’s performed nationally and internationally in Norway, the Balkans and the UK. Valencia has held numerous residencies and received awards for her choreography, the most notable being the 2023 Creative Capital Award, a 2019 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Extended Life grant, a 2018 Bessie Award for Outstanding “Breakout” Choreographer, a 2018 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant to Artists Award, and a 2015–16 Jerome Travel and Study grant; she was also an artist in the Whitney Biennial 2019. She’s had the privilege of working with artists AK Burns, Elizabeth Orr, Em Rooney, Fia Backstrom, Geo Wyeth, Guadalupe Rosales, Heera Gandhu, Jazmin Romero, Juliana May, Jules Gimbrone, Kim Brandt, Lauren Bakst, Lydia Okrent, Morgan Bassichis, MPA, O’Helen, and robbinschilds.
Ogemdi Ude is a Nigerian-American dance artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn, New York. She creates performances that investigate how Black folks’ cultural, familial, and personal histories are embedded in their bodies and influence their everyday and performative movement. She aims to incite critical engagement with embodied Black history as a means to imagine Black futurity. Her work has been presented at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Danspace Project, Gibney, Center for Performance Research, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Streb Lab for Action Mechanics, Lewis Center for the Arts, La Mama Courthouse, and for BAM's DanceAfrica festival. She currently serves as Head of Movement for Drama at Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan. She is a 2021 Laundromat Project Artist in Residence, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement Grantee, a member of Gibney’s 2020 Moving Toward Justice Cohort, and a 2019-2020 Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU Resident Fellow. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in English, Dance, and Theater from Princeton University.
Laurie Berg makes work in a variety of forms including dance and performance, collage, and jewelry. With an ongoing interest in iconography, honed absurdity and sharp, sometimes dark humor, Berg draws out a multiplicity of meanings and associations from her subject matter to create a living collage. Berg is also a co-organizer of AUNTS, a roving event platform guided by core principles of collectivity, cooperation and sharing. Most recently her work was presented at Danspace Project and as part of the Joyce UNLEASHED Series at The Invisible Dog Art Center. She is the 2016 recipient of “The Tommy” Award, was a 2013 New York Live Arts Studio Series Resident Artist and a 2010-2012 Movement Research Artist-In-Residence. Her jewelry, which plays with the juxtaposition of real and fake, new and old, precious and plastic, can be seen around the necks of many dance artists in NYC.
