Summerlessness AudioVisualSpatial programs IV, V, and VI
Summerlessness AudioVisualSpatial programs IV, V, and VI
The Warp continues the AudioVisualSpatial program for Summerlessness with three remaining evenings which push the boundaries about what the concept of lessness can mean and how expansive it can become.
AVS 46 Summerlessness part IV:
The Living Daylights (In the Space of Subtractivity by Design)
1 September 18:00
This program commemorates the previous incarnation of the Kunstkapel as a gallery specifically for design concepts rather than fine art following on its previous identity as a part of the Sandberg Art Institute and previously the St. Nicolas catholic school (which prompted Summerlessness I and II). These projects take the lessness decree and apply it to the concept of a laboratory for design.
The Walkback performs Summer Stock
Summer Stock is a very familiar phrase in the theatre world, referring to the production of older or tried and true productions made during the summer months in venues found in more off center or vacation oriented locations. But The Walkback ensemble takes the phrase more literally to gather up literally all familiar actions, gestures and utterances that have become actually so familiar and repetitive as to be deemed stock coming out of the strangely unifying experience of the Covid pandemic particularly in what is perceived as the first summer of apparent freedom. More than ever people seem to find themselves reduced to saying the same things with all new significant and learned gestures to go with it. This would seem to suggest a new unified design for living. As usual, The Walkback takes this research as the starting point for a performative walk back through this new reality in order to observe what this reduction may have done to us and where it might lead. The Walkback includes Dorn Whitlow, Cathy Matthis, Randall Crane, Natalie Telema Bourne and Terry Gornick.
Tensegrity Co-op performs We have designs but Given the Situation We Will Just Have to Make Due
Utilizing drawings and plans shown thru a complex overlay of slide projections and field recordings of construction sites an analysis of design alternatives for the space is offered. This is a timely analysis in the face of the future remaking of the Kunstkapel venue into its new identity as the conservatory of Amsterdam. But this study is made purely within the realm of the provisional which allows the imagination to run wild and thus the presentation puts forward incredible flights of fancy offered within the most limited means of presentation and representation: some very spare drawings which pile up in complexity with more elaborate explanation. The project has developed into a parody of the presentation of architectural renovation plans offered lately for major major venues and locations within Amsterdam which it can be noticed is under constant rebuilding to more fully realize its future as a new real life Disneyland for Europe. Tensegrity Co-Op currently includes Ettiene Minoury, Pascal Wissolu and Hubert Foure.
The Archetechtonic Assembly performs Designing Residue : The Itinerary of Endless Summer Places
The Kunstkapel is again the location of surround cinema and circular sound design which takes its cue from the idea of Summer blockbusters, summertime blues, and the romance of summer places which are far and away from one’s workaday world. All of these ideas are residues at the end of the summer that have contributed to a life lived apart and which must be always bid a bittersweet farewell as part of its very design. In that sense this piece is a kind of elegy for the traditional idea of the summer break particularly in the context of this post pandemic moment. Highly processed imagery is placed in widescreen surround format along with competing soundtracks to produce a highly disturbed memory of this summer idyll. The Archetechtonic Assembly includes Grant Harris, Deborah Lane, and Lee Ellickson.
AVS 47 Summerlessness part V: The Last is the Least (But don’t call it minimal!)
5 September 18:00
The challenge to these performative groups is to take the rule of lessness as absolute principle. Thus a most demanding evening is imagined in which the slightest gesture might have the greatest impact. This program reprises the three groups that contributed to the first event of Summerlessness and these three groups will further refine this state of lessness into the final program of the season.
Ambulant performs Instances are Fewer And Farther Between
This work is a refinement of a continuing project from this group project centered upon social contracts, shared rhythms and perpetual cycles of movement and interaction between bodies in daily life. Having developed a score of basic activity, the attempt here is to apply the rule of lessness by slowing down and establishing intermittency as an operating rule such that we witness a gradual slowing down of physical activity wherein contingent events, gestures and motions occur literally as “fewer and further between”…. Ambulant includes Terrence Franson, Heap Mathers, Abigail Anson, and Nicole Read.
The Discordian Knot performs One Less Action Can Be Lesser Than
The Discordian Knot continues to make examples produced from its rule of five principals in which all performances are entirely developed out of the limitation of five rules without any further planning or scripting. The five rules in this case pertain rather than spurs to greater improvisational possibility more to severe limitation and restriction. The Discordian Knot includes Rory Hernandez, Dawn Porter, Della Rittenal, and Roland Cassel.
The Distraught Foundation performs We Made Very Little of It
This ensemble is formed from a reduced group from many of the refugees who performed in the inaugural event of Summerlessness as well as several of the individuals who are working with them from this side. The refugees are challenged to engage critically with their experience as refugees and the overwhelming impact of statelessness and ambiguity with which they have had to continually adjust themselves. In reducing these experiences to the bare bones, a provocative image of a strange holding pattern in life emerges where every opportunity seems but a provisional projection.
AVS 48 Summerlessness part VI: In the Event that Nothing Happens (Three Renditions)
10-11-12 September 16:00
The title of this final event would apparently speak for itself and its command is taken with great seriousness by the participants who return again from the first and fourth events of Summerlessness in order to push the challenge of lessness to its most provocative interpretation. Each group has developed its own unique interpretation as to how to deal with the challenge of this title. The result of such an enterprise is that the result is invariably marked by longueurs of considerable duration and so therefore the spectator is warned that this is a very demanding event not for the squeamish nor the impatient.
The Distraught Foundation performs First Rendition (In the Event that Nothing Happens)
The third Summerlessness performance created by this amalgam of refugees and compatriots who work with them are challenged to confront the dictum of the event title.
The Distraught Foundation performs Second Rendition (In the Event that Nothing Happens)
Once again the Discordian Knot utilizes its five rule principle to create even greater restriction to produce their interpretation of the event. The Discordian Knot includes Rory Hernandez, Dawn Porter, Della Rittenal, and Roland Cassel.
Ambulant performs Third Rendition (In the Event that Nothing Happens)
What is expected to be the longest rendition of the evening, given the interest in the group in rhythms and perpetual cycles over time, the attempt to stage nothing happening at all would seem an inevitable and natural activity. Ambulant includes Terrence Franson, Heap Mathers, Abigail Anson, and Nicole Read.
