Joni: Surge: Contour Theater

Thursday, June 27th at 8pm, ISSUE is pleased to present the next stage of Surge and the second commission from 2024 Artist-In-Residence Joni. Over the course of her residency, the artist will present work-in-progress showings and new compositions of incredibly revealing, intimate and visceral sound work. Joni’s Contour Theater is a ‘theatrical’ rendition of the ongoing Surge project that delves into the dramatics of music through reshaping and contouring the body of sound, trying to find new limits. Following her first performance at ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Pl, Contour Theater relocates to the historic, Spanish-style theater at Brooklyn Music School. 

The material is rearranged to highlight its theatrical nature: the tragic, operatic, and ceremonious, within a body-organ-surgeon produced harmony. An endless cycle of desire. Electronic sound, piano, clay and movement align for an hour as a deep dive into three stages of a transitional circle: dismemberment, reconnection, and control. By way of live sampling, Joni explores loops as sound and memory; creating new arrangements for the body to exist within. Mirroring total dismemberment with live reassembly, Surge reworks sounds recorded in a state of complete unconsciousness and vulnerability.

This performance is dedicated to the memory of my great friend, mentor, lover and collaborator Hattie Wiener, an inspiration to many. You really don't know freedom like this till you feel it tingle in the back of your throat. We were beyond our physical circumstances in this life and we will be beyond it in any other. I love you dearly, and I am eternally grateful to call you my sister. 

Joni and Hattie's last performance - highlight video (office magazine)

Joni is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Joni’s works weave sound, image and word with performances that are concerned with the physicality of desire and control, the monumental, and the multitude of histories within the body. Through body movement and misplacement of sound, Joni’s practice seeks to decode inheritance systems and the uncontrollable reflexes within them. Traveling between Darbuka drums and glitch, magic and endurance, Joni presents work that scratches wounds in hopes for water rather than blood. Joni has a BFA from the School of Visual Arts (NY), and works within art and nightlife spaces. Joni is the Founder of Intima, a trans led Brooklyn based collective focusing on fusing art and performance into nightlife spaces and raves. Created to carve a space for the trans queer community that brings, Intima brought together thousands of queer trans people over the past year, with Joni organizing and curating all parties and events. Joni is currently on MoMa PS1’s Warm Up 2023 host committee and a contributor to the festival's curation. Joni has presented solo works as a performer and electronic musician at spaces such as Nowadays, Elsewhere, H0l0, Market Hotel, The Palace, Otion Front Studio, Chaos Computer, HERE Arts, 3 Dollar bill, Times Square Arts. She completed a residency at Otion Front Studio in March 2023. Joni is currently the nightlife manager of Brooklyn venue Market Hotel.